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MANY MOODS AND MANY MINDS 



MANY MOODS AND 

MANY MINDS i i i 

A BOOK OF POEMS ^ ^ 
By LOUIS JAMES ^LOCK ^ 



NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY, MCMVI 
LONDON: JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD 



Copyright 1906 
By John Lane Company 



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LiSRARYofCC^^Gniiin 
Two Copies Received -. 
SEP 18 1906 I 

/XJecyijnt Entry i 

"ii:I-£;,. J 



TAtf Plimpton Press Norwood Mass. U-S-A- 



CONTENTS 



The Celestial Maiden 

Illusions Perdues 

From Over-Man to Over-Soul 

A Symphony 
Resistance . . 

Homer .... 

Song and Poet . 
Loin du Bal (Waltz Movement - 
The Arbitration Treaty 
ETrea mrepoevra 
In the Afternoon 
The Church 

Elegy .... 

Twilight .... 
Destiny (South Chicago, Illinois. 
Circles .... 
Inspiration 

Sonnets — I. The Expedient 
II. The Just 
III. The Right . 
Justification 
An Indian Story 
Solace .... 



Gillett) 



The 



Boy Speak 



23 
28 



44 
55 
55 
61 
61 
64 

65 
68 
69 
69 
73 
75 
78 
78 
79 
80 

84 
87 



Sonnets 



Assurance 
Drowned 
Sonnets — 



I. 

II. 

III. 

IV. 



Height 
Distance 
Life . 
Love 



I. The Orient 
II. Judea . 
III. The Occident 
Obsession . 
From Under the Ban . 
Irresolution 

The Four Quarters of the 
A False Triumph 
Rebound 
Incertitude 
Sing, O Bird 
Sonnet 
Lines 
Divided 
Infelix 
Sonnet 

The Seventh Day 
A Wish 
Light as Air 
Night and Sea 
Union 
Courage 
Sphere-Music 
With a Book 
Commonplace 
The Ideal . 
Vigil . 



Year 



VI 



PAG£ 

Remorse 121 

Lullaby 122 

En Avant 123 

Sonnet 123 

Epilogue 124 

A Parting 125 

Admonition 126 

Solitude 127 

At the Theatre ....... 127 

Over the Lake 129 

On the Heights 129 

Echo 130 

The Bell 131 

Art for Art's Sake ....... 132 

On the Sea ........ 134 

Insight 134 

Lost 135 

The Siren ......... 136 

Songs 142 

Asymptote 144 

Unexplained ........ 144 

Indra, God of the Sky 145 

Threefold 147 

Moll Pitcher ........ 147 

Freedom and the West 150 

On a Book of Poems 151 

The Western Muse 152 

For a Child 155 

The Mountaineer 156 



vu 



PRELUDE 

Suave spirits of the dim sweet days departed, 
Dreams that made glad the luminous past, 

I see you rise before me fervour-hearted, 
And know you as you are at last; 

The hopes that heard the earlier praise, 

The Hght that filled the fleet-foot days, 

Waken and shine once more within me, 
And the clear splendours once more win me. 

Desires and joys, elusive apparitions. 

Wing towards me in swift musical flight, 

And do not chide me for the vain omissions 
That dusked their heyday into night; 

The forms and flames of vanished songs 

Fleet round me in alluring throngs, 
The magic of the insights gifted 
With power to see Time's vapours lifted. 

So my rapt conscience can at length discover 

Your purpose to attend the sun, 
And call you back from deepening glooms that hover 

On the sheer brink of the foredone; 
ix 



Forth then from realms of night and sleep, 

Whether it be to smile or to weep, 

Break the ecHpse that has held and bound you, 
Breathe once again, light is around you. 

There where the mighty morning star resplendent 

Sings in the ever brightening sky, 
There where man's hope has victory for attendant. 

There where the day grows white on high. 
Make your obedient voices blend 
With the chorus that shall know not end. 

Lost in the great and golden glory 

Which is the World's triumphant story. 



MANY MOODS AND MANY 
MINDS 

THE CELESTIAL MAIDEN 

Clearest of singers that our land has borne. 
If I have ventured in the realm where you 
Are master of the rainfall and the dew, 

The night's white stars and colours of the morn, 

Grasses and blooms the sky-stretched plains have worn. 
Sorrows and joys the forest-tracker knew. 
And all the messages the four winds blew, 

And simpler mans vast hopes, and mighty scorn', — 

If I have ventured underneath those boughs 

Which your warm breath will keep alive forever. 
And sing again one song that I heard there. 
Surely through spirit space that this allows. 
Tour unaverted soul will hear, — and never 
To any man came a reward more fair. 

Lonely in the glimmering twilight. 
By the slowly dying fireside, 
Holding in his palms his forehead, 
Sat young Waupee in his woe. 

I 



All about the trees of autumn 
Lifted up their leafless branches, 
And the winds went dully moaning 
Round the solitary lodge. 

Far away from friends and kindred. 
Merry sounds of children's voices, 
Cheerful singing of the maidens, 
And the games of rugged braves. 

Deep within the trackless forest, 
Where the wild deer stalked unhunted. 
And the loud birds woke the echoes, 
Waupee had decreed to dwell. 

Grim and grievous were the visions. 
Passing on his mind's wide prairie, 
Shadows of the toils before him. 
Pictures of the tasks undone. 

Yet across his night of sorrow 
Stole one star of softest lustre. 
Beamed as does the star of evening. 
Clear and gracious, full of hope. 

Six long moons had gone in silence. 
Since young Waupee, strong in battle, 
Best and bravest of the bravest, 
Had abandoned all he loved. 
2 



One deep night as he was straying, 
Breathing in the airs of Maytime, 
Through the prairie's green expansion, 
On his soul there came a dream. 

Not a murmur broke the stillness 
Save the rustling of the grasses, 
Far on high the stars smiled faintly. 
Tender moonbeams kissed the clouds. 

Subtle bursts of unknown joyance 
Stirred the limbs of brooding Waupee, 
Thrills of some strange expectation. 
Change divine to all his Hfe. 

Lately had the thirst of battle. 
Fierce delight of war and conquest, 
Thunderous music of the war-cries. 
Wakened horror in his soul. 

Also had the smiles of maidens. 
Lighting up their dusky faces, 
Bursting moonwise from their eyelids. 
Cloud-like veils of eyes' sweet fire. 

Purest tones of their low voices. 
Lithe, quick ways in sport and dancing. 
And the pathos of their weeping 
Seemed dissevered from his life. 

3 



On his heart had risen a longing, 
To his thought had come a splendour, 
Strange devotedness and holy, 
Omen clear and beautiful. 

Hence he loved the midnight prairies, 
Searched the forest's dark recesses. 
Climbed the lofty mountain-summits 
Where the winds blew fresh and cold. 

Though the braves with rudest clamour 
Had disturbed his meditations, 
Scorned his womanish demeanour. 
Laughed to note his pallid face. 

Yet while frolic winsome Maytime 
Clad with leaves the waking woodland, 
Bade the birds begin their carols, 
Loosened streams to shine and flow, 

Through the long night wandered Waupee, 
While the growing grasses rustled. 
Underneath the lovely starshine 
Dancing round the moon's thin curve. 

On his thought's dark wind-swept ocean 
Suddenly there shone a mighty 
Radiance of a heavenly glory 
Silvering all its waves to rest. 

4 



Lo! his eyes* rapt gaze turned upward 
Where a clear star beamed and glittered 
Softly as if tears of pity 
Veiled its lustre white and pure. 

Forth he stretched his arms in anguish 
Unto answering god or goddess, 
Prayed for succour and for guidance, 
For the passing of his pain. 

Can his burning eyes deceive him ? 
Or his leaping heart speak falsely ? 
Can the thrill that shakes his body 
Hold no message high and sweet ? 

Nay, he finds the star descending. 
Nay, he sees its burnished lustre 
Fill the wood with gradual brightness, 
And his soul with sudden hope. 

Nearer comes the star and nearer; 
Hark! a voice uplifts sweet singing 
From its heart of mist-like lucence 
Fraught with noble joy of peace. 

In a cloud of silver brightness 
He beholds a wondrous vision 
That with mystical enchantment 
Calms the tumult of his breast. 

5 



In a chariot of pale moonbeams 
Drawn by tall deer, lightning-winged, 
Pawing into foamy radiance 
All the dream-floor where they stood, 

Sat a maiden whose divineness 
Shook his soul with nameless longings. 
Woke to life from deepest slumber 
Hopes that long ago seemed dead; 

As though all his aspirations. 
All his passionate conscious strivings, 
All the spirit's upward climbings. 
All the heart's strange inmost life, 

Had put on sweet form and body. 
And appeared in Hving brightness, 
Answer to his patient seeking. 
Beauty noble, perfect, clear. 

As across the reach of marshes 
FHts the faintly flickering fen-fire 
Like a restless bird in springtime. 
Making brief pause here and there. 

So the cloud of brilliance wavered. 
Touched the low transfigured grasses. 
Veered awhile in curves capricious. 
Came to rest where Waupee sat. 
6 



Silent was the voice whose singing 
Had fulfilled the listening night-time 
With the strange and mystic music, 
Voicings of high prophecies. 

Slowly then the maid descended, 
Stood before the tranced Waupee, 
Gazed with eyes of love and pity 
Downward on his Hfted face. 

Tall her body was and stately. 
And her spirit through its vestment 
Bursting in soft light purpureal 
Girt her with an aureole. 

From her forehead silver feathers 
Swept her hair of dusky glory 
As though light should cast a shadow 
In the midst of Hghter light. 

To her knees her gleaming kirtle 
Fell in folds of molten sapphire; 
Leggings of the palest amber 
Shone above her moccasins. 

Waupee gazed in rapt amazement 
On the gently smiling maiden; 
All the storm of his emotions 
Burst in one long, heavy sigh. 

7 



Knowledge, heavenly, sure, and blissful, 
Touched his soul with revelation; 
Search had reached its noble ending, 
Quest had gained its farthest goal. 

Forth he stretched involuntary 
Arms of long expectant passion 
Toward her as she stood before him; 
Silent yet were those fair lips. 

Then her smile's illumination 
Lit her face with tender yearning; 
Low in tones of mystic music 
Came her words unto his ear: 

As though his own soul had spoken, 
And his truest thought had murmured 
In a solitude mysterious 
All the secrets of his life. 

"Not in vain, O noble Waupee, 
Are thy cries and aspirations. 
Cries unto the Mighty Spirit, 
Cries for guidance, cries for rest. 

"He has heard thee in the night-time. 
Calling on him from the darkness. 
He has heard thy sad complainings. 
And has sent me unto thee. 
8 



"In the land of the Eternal, 

In the region of the Spirit, 

I have seen thee and have loved thee, 

I am come to bring thee peace. 

"Therefore listen to my sayings; 
Not yet ended is thy labour. 
Nor completed the endeavour 
Whereunto thine hand is set. 

"Thou must go unto thy fellows 
And subdue the bitter war cries, 
Thou must mould their cruel rudeness 
Into nobler forms of life. 

"Thou must help the groaning women 
And upHft the weeping children, 
Thou must turn to peaceful toihng 
All the energies of war. 

"I will ever be beside thee; 
When the distant village slumbers 
I will come and sing before thee 
Melodies of realms divine. 

"When the long, long toil is over 
I will bear thee in my chariot, 
O my loved one, O my husband. 
Upward, homeward, far with me." 

9 



Ah, one rapturous, holiest instant, 
Waupee held her to his bosom, 
Pressed upon her Hps his kisses; 
Then she gently freed herself. 

Slowly stept into her chariot. 
Smiled upon him as he watched her, 
Pointed to the distant village. 
Floated upward to the stars. 

Waupee knew the cloud receding, 
Saw it gain its lofty station. 
Then distraught with joy and passion. 
Swooning fell upon the ground. 

When he woke from his deep slumber. 
Found his mind and hope returning, 
Down he tore the lonely wigwam. 
Wildly fared upon his way; 

One last moment turned to westward. 
Gazed upon the silver splendid 
Shining of his loved one's mansion. 
Poured a deep-voiced prayer to her. 

Far into the mighty forest 

Sped his swift unconscious footsteps. 

Driven by a force of feeling 

Past resistance, past his will. 

10 



Wondrous movements thrilled him wildly, 
Storms swept through his inmost soul-deeps, 
Higher potencies and nobler 
Warred upon the things of old. 

Where the warriors came least often, 
And the wilderness had hearkened 
Scarce one sound of human voices, 
Waupee Hved the conflict through. 

Sometimes in the awful struggle 
Mad despair sat near and whispered 
Hopeless words and mockings subtle 
While his very heart stood still. 

Lo! when night came, calm and solemn. 
Shone his silver star to westward. 
Songs divine and sweet with solace 
Brought his soul to rest and peace. 

Thus the moons sped on and vanished, 
And the morns passed into evenings. 
Summer fled with flower and leafage. 
Autumn waned with flame and fruit. 

Cheerless were the chilly evenings, 
Leafless were the trees and barren, 
All the winds went sadly moaning 
Round the solitary lodge. 
II 



Lonely in the glimmering twilight, 
By the slowly dying fireside, 
Holding in his palms his forehead 
Sat young Waupee in his woe. 

Had he been abandoned, thwarted, 
Did she find him weak, unworthy, 
Was the toil too sharp and mighty. 
Being left for later days ? 

Nay, like sunshine on the waters 
Waking them to joy and splendour. 
Filling ripples with swift glory. 
Came decision on his soul. 

Fled the phantoms and the darkness. 
Passed the conflict and the sorrow. 
Truth descended and possessed him, 
Held him for a child and heir. 

Never more should doubt and trembling 
Seize him in their angry clutches. 
Tear his thought into confusion. 
Flaunt the fragments mockingly. 

Joy and strength and resolution 
Made his heart their home and dwelling. 
Sent him forth to noblest action. 
Gave into his grasp the deed. 

12 



Then he rose with hfted forehead, 
Strong, erect, and sure of conquest, 
Girt his loosened belt about him, 
Raised his hands unto the skies. 

Suddenly she stood before him. 
Maiden of his love and longing, 
Shone in more celestial brightness, 
HeavenHer, gentlier, loveHer. 

Not a word her soft Hps uttered. 
But she smiled upon him gazing. 
And she pointed to the pathway 
Seldom trod by foot of man. 

Leading to the distant village 
Where were Waupee's Hfe and labour. 
Motioned once again and vanished. 
Shone to westward as his star. 

All that night and yet another 
Through the dark primeval forest 
Waupee traveled, and the morning 
Rose upon the village near. 

Waupee made no sign nor answer 
To the eager questioning warriors, 
Went to his deserted wigwam. 
Girt him for the needed toil. 
13 



So the days and weeks proceeded; 
Soon the rugged warriors noticed 
Something changed in Waupee*s features, 
Something strange and wonderful. 

So they dared not vex with clamour 
His continual meditations, 
Forced to wait in marveling silence 
What the end of all might be. 

Like the countenance of a prophet. 
Holy, thoughtful, pale and patient, 
Waupee's face had grown to beauty 
Passing that of mortal men. 

Low his voice was, full of music, 
Like the sighing of the breezes 
When across the solemn forest 
Midnight weaves her starry spell. 

Every night he called the children. 
Brought them to his lodge and told them 
Stories of their fathers' prowess, 
Tales of heroes' manliness. 

Also legends of the woodland. 
Fairy lore and dreams fantastic. 
Words that held the sense like music 
Winged the twilight's silver flight. 



Lo! as shines the moon at night-time, 
Silver with imperial lustre, 
Through the stories* woof etherial 
Gleamed one meaning, soft and clear. 

Patience, hope, and long endurance. 
Tender love of man and nature. 
Like a golden theme in music 
Ever sounded through the deep 

Flow of tales that caught the moaning 
Winds struck from the trees in autumn. 
And the merry, flashing tinkling 
Made by rivulets in spring. 

So the children grew more gentle, 
Rude, rough boys beheld in maidens 
Something sweeter, holier, higher 
Than the savage sports they loved. 

Like a tender rain in summer 
Come to freshen all the meadows. 
Some new influence steaHng on them 
Woke the seeds of faith and love. 

Soon as creep the twilight shadows, 
Lengthening, lengthening down the landscape, 
Waupee's stories reached the elders. 
Found the thoughtless painted braves. 
15 



Nor did they disdain to listen 
Round the winter's blazing fireside 
When the wondrous revelations 
Broke the silence of the night. 

Thus the days and months passed swiftly 
While the tribe beheld their prophet, 
And the men knew well their saviour 
In the young enthusiast. 

When the spring again with sunshine 
Filled the leaf-garmented forests, 
Waupee taught to mete the cornfields, 
Set the labourers to their toil. 

Women, mothers, no more burthened 
With their heavy tasks and thankless, 
Sat beside the wigwams singing. 
Wove their mats in peacefulness. 

Like a world new-born from chaos 
All the village bloomed in beauty, 
Where the people dwelt in joyance. 
And the days were full of sun. 

Never had such plenteous harvests 
Visited those rocky regions; 
Never had such happy quiet 
Come upon them from above. 
i6 



Thus the days and months passed swiftly; 
Waupee felt his labours prosper, 
Saw his toilings like young fruit-trees 
Laden with the golden spoil. 

Soon the neighbouring tribes in envy 
Looked upon the prosperous nation, 
Sought to rouse by wide-winged trespass 
War's loud tumult in the land. 

Like a king of men young Waupee 
Strode between the angered rivals, 
Like a prophet out of Heaven 
Bound them in strong bonds of peace. 

Thus the influence softly spreading 
Like the meaning through sweet music, 
Or the sunHght's yellow splendour 
Through the clear expanse of air. 

Sped from nation unto nation. 
Swept a mighty undercurrent 
Through the rude and untamed spirits, 
Built a new world in the old. 

Like a forest in the springtime. 
Joyous, gold-green in the sunshine. 
Voiced with birds and streamlets singing, 
Smiled upon by cloudless skies, 
17 



Like a yellow wind-swept wheat field, 
Visible laughter and responsive 
To the noontide's flooding lightness, 
All the treaty-making tribes 

Burst into a nobler growing, 
Felt the rising of their spirits 
Swift matured to glorious harvest, 
Fruits of patience, hope, and love. 

Waupee saw the fair fruition 
Poured forth of propitious Heaven 
Like a sea of mellow moonlight 
Sweeping from behind the clouds. 

Soon would come unto his longings. 
Give herself to his embraces, 
Gladden all his life forever 
That strange maiden whom he loved. 

Well fulfilled had been her promise, 
All unbroken been the guidance 
Which her mighty words and presence 
Had made Hve within his soul. 

Through the long and frozen winter 
She had cortie into his wigwam 
When the stilly power of midnight 
Held the village bound in sleep. 
i8 



Through the green and rustling summer 
She had met him in the forest 
When no bird his tale was singing, 
Words of love for waiting ear. 

She had grown his breath of being, 
He had felt his soul upHfted 
Into regions of emotion 
Past his utmost dream of life. 

Every night the splendid vision 
Grew more winning and more gracious; 
Waupee felt his body's bondage 
Loosening slowly from his soul. 

Thus the days and months passed swiftly, 
While the land waxed rich and fruitful. 
And the nation, great and mighty. 
Ruled with mild and wide-spread sway. 

Oft the lovely Indian maidens 
Gazed upon the youthful Waupee, 
And his pale illumined features 
Woke sweet hopes within their breasts. 

One girl, young and tall and shapely. 
Hung upon his faintest accent. 
Saw his aims with angel clearness, 
Felt her life commixed with his. 

19 



At his feet she sat and listened 
While he told his tales and wonders, 
Caught his gift and power of vision, 
Knew herself a prophetess. 

As a father trains a daughter, 
Or a seer his chief disciple, 
On whose shoulder falls his mantle, 
Waupee held her dear to him. 

Therefore when his summons sounded, 
Waupee woke her from her slumber. 
Whispered her to rise and follow 
Where his footsteps led the way. 

TrembHngly she stood beside him, 
Saw around the lonesome prairie. 
Watched him gazing up to westward 
Where his star shone, pure and clear. 

Tremblingly she felt the splendour 
Slow descending from its station. 
Knew the glorious spirit maiden, 
Heard the music of her voice. 

Then a sudden agitation 
Seized upon the silent Waupee, 
All his body shook and quivered. 
Lips and cheeks grew deadly pale. 
20 



Finally a cry escaped him 
As he fell upon the greensward, 
Moveless lay his face illumined, 
Brightened in the mystic glow. 

Lo! just poised upon his forehead 
Like a bird in air self-balanced. 
Clad in Hght and looking upward, 
Stood the new enfranchised soul. 

Like a cloud across the snow-clad 
Peak of some untrodden mountain. 
Like a slow, majestic planet 
Sweeping down the sky's steep curve, 

Towards its joy the pure soul floated, 
Entered on its new possession. 
Clasped its love in long embraces, 
Reached the end of all its strife. 

Then did Waupee turn and utter 
To the kneeling Indian maiden 
Words of trust and consolation, 
Filling her great heart with joy. 

"Thou shalt take, O maid, upon thee 
This large labour and endeavour. 
Well begun amid the people. 
Furthered from the gods above. 

21 



"I will ever be beside thee, 
Giving faith and certain guidance, 
I will teach thee words of wisdom, 
Smoothing well thy rugged way. 

"Also say unto the people. 

Here where they will find my body, 

Do I wish it should be buried 

At the middle time of night." 

Slowly, — slowly rose the vision. 
Lessened on the pauseless gazer. 
Found its home among its sisters. 
Glowed among the mild-eyed stars. 

Never knew the weeping seeress 

How she reached the neighbouring village. 

When she told her tale of sorrow, 

Or they found the body cold. 

Yet at once she took upon her 
Duties lofty, and commanded 
Where the body should be buried. 
What new rites should be observed. 

Willingly obeyed the people, 
Understood her right of message. 
Called her prophetess and holy. 
Let her sway them till her death. 
22 



For his grave a mound they builded 
Where the longest grasses flourished, 
And the wild bees came and pastured, 
While the birds sang roundelays. 

Here the chieftains made their treaties. 
Mighty sachems held sage councils. 
And the name and fame of Waupee 
Wrought unceasing miracles. 

Here the mothers brought their children. 
Told the tale through all their weeping 
How the patient, toiHng Waupee 
Brought divinest peace to men. 

As the years passed on and perished, 
Waupee's name and mystic story 
Filled the land as subtle fragrance 
Permeates the summer air. 

So his Hfe and high example 
Stole into men's minds and longings. 
Till the spirit of dead Waupee 
Was the spirit of the land. 

ILLUSIONS PERDUES 

As fall the apple blossoms with the wind. 

Or frost-burned leaves float down the autumn air. 

Or past-blown petals star the thickening grass, 

23 



Pale dreams speed from me, visions of great joys, 

Strong hopes of high achievement, passioned loves 

That craved the whole of ecstasy, and sights 

Of Truths that underprop the Universe. 

I soared the illimitable ether, sailed 

The midmost seas, held to my answering breast 

The might of untamed storms, and Hghtly sped 

From glow to glow across the narrow stream 

Of endless space, and in the rush of Time 

Clove the wave-centuries as one who stems 

The river's tide that haunts his youth's thin wood. 

Whither have they all flown, not birds of earth, 

Unclassed of mortal mind, and singing songs 

Which whoso heard took all his soul perforce 

And gave him strength to climb steep paths to heaven. 

I stand alone beneath the silent night. 

And find the sweet winds at their softened play. 

And know that star responds to distant star 

With silver beams of love, and inland hear 

The unresting croon divine the great sea sounds 

In ear of earth, his dullard paramour. 

Yea, all the silence thrills with lover's bhss. 

Too deep for words, too wondrous glad for day's 

Most manifold lucent knowledges that pierce 

The mysteries profaned by alien presence. 

Even the sun's; the symphony sweeps the void 

And bathes the rolHng earth in voiceless sound, 

Holds sure within its scope the energy 

That buil.ds all shapes throughout the reach of time, 

24 



And joins them by the noblest, deepest stress 

Into the miracle of their unity, 

Bringing whatso there be of thought and power 

Into one fair creation, marvellous birth 

Of architectural splendour, mass on mass 

Of dream-cathedral's wide-embracing walls; 

And as I hearken, the silent sound is changed 

To viewless sight, imagination's rule 

And sceptred right upon the whole, the world 

And life both music and the fluctuant form 

Which interchangeably and yet in one 

Grasp the full spheres of mind and sense; I see 

That great cathedral beyond time and space 

With souls for elements of its structure, God 

Its potence and support; I see aloft 

Its pinnacles piercing some clear blue, I see 

On painted ceiling or amid the maze 

Of carvings multiform desires and deeds. 

Saints haloed by the vision of rapt prayer. 

Flowers spreading upward, and each petal tense 

With touch of Heaven's transfiguring finger, see 

The windowed glory for the blest to dwell in, 

When earth has shrivelled like a scroll in flame. 

And spirit thrills and conquers everywhere, 

Unspeakable guerdon to each waiting heart 

Of gift he grandly longs for; but I hear 

No woven tones of separate singing sweet 

Individualized for high behoof 

Of my fixed joyance sound to break the ice 

25 



Beneath which flows, or flows not, what of me 
Remains from the dead past, nor coigne nor niche 
Sustains figure or script which is mine own 
Or thought of my deep self. So am I torn 
From large participation in the bhss 
That is the daily fare of other men; 
So do I stand and muse upon the years 
Which were far other when bird after bird 
Sought passage from the nest of my charged soul 
And brought in swift return what yet the fields 
And woods or peopled wilds of homes of men 
Had there to offer. So I strove to build 
A chapel's charm for whoso Hst to come 
And pass from golden pleasure to delight 
And feel how delicate love bore up his feet 
Or gave him wings to soar new spaces sown 
With stars of mine own making; these the truth 
Garmented in firm Hght to shine afar 
Through fingering dark of faith and fill with sun 
More sunlike than the sun, the light of heaven 
Mixed with the Hght of home, the friendly ray 
Which surely dwells within fife's multitude 
And yet stays hidden till the appointed touch 
Frees it to aureole. Lost in the vast 
My labour smoulders, heat and fire enough 
To show a purpose urgent, — that is all. 
Forth of mine eyes has gone the sighted strength 
Born of soul-perceant passion that engirt 
The morning with a dream-fike loveUness 

26 



Past Nature's highest of giving; from my heart 

Has fled the pathos that made ceaseless tears 

Dropt from the hds of time my suffering's symbol 

And expiatory pain of me to rid 

All sorrow of its anguish, being built 

Into my house of beauty; fled from my thought 

The cunning of the secret of the Spring, 

Sweet re-creator of the fair and lost, 

As if it had not been and could not be, 

Has found a grave in lands unfindable. 

And you, O brain, that wont to strive and toil 

In tenuous ravelling of the spirit mesh 

Which holds the universe within its filminess, 

Fall from your height, and sink into the dusk 

Of faded flame. So have they left me lone, 

And like a tree disleaved and desolate. 

Weighed down by winter's heaviest snows, and 

swayed 
At random by the myriad-counselled winds, 
I stand and wonder if some latter Time 
Will woo me into heart and hope again. 



27 



FROM OVER-MAN TO OVER-SOUL 

A SYMPHONY 



Allegro Appassionato 

The Over-Man s Hopes and Fears. 

All is but a dream and vision, 

All is built around the centre 

Which am I; 

Nothing aHen can ascend nor enter 

Into my being's sky; 

I hold it but a mockery and derision 

To bend the neck to any commander, 

Since to his great I can oppose a greater and a 

grander. 
I am the secret of the wondrous story. 
Mingled of misery and of glory, 
Which has gone roaring down the ages 
With rare brief calms and mighty rages. 
Nay, tell me not of any sovereign lord, 
Whatever name be given to him, 
I can confront him with a nobler sword, 
And all his majesty pales to dim 
Before the leap and storm of Hghtening 
Which speeds throughout my spirit brightening. 

28 



Whatso can be told of height 

Makes a Hne to be transcended, 

But in me the depth of right 

Finds an end which never can be ended. 

The flight of the Spirit is boldly taken, 
From point to point of its rapt devotion; 
No joy and no hope shall be forsaken. 
Caught in the sweep of its marvellous motion; 

These joys and hopes are my principal glory. 
Their passion part of my gradual story, 
I see them all as from a promontory 
The flakes of fire that arise and waken 
With the wind that dies on the breast of the ocean. 

Bliss is it thus to be the creator 
Of all the worlds that are or may be, 

Rising with the moments grander and greater — 
Whithersoever the end or the way be — 
Into fuller and stronger possession. 
Past the need of reserve or repression, 
Forth from the bonds or glooms of confession. 
Actor at once and the act's dissipator, 
Fearless of what shall the voice of the Nay be. 

So do we know indeed what the whole is, 
Feehng ourselves its aim and its inmost. 

Always at one with what the true goal is. 
Always the hves who soar and who win most, 

29 



Nay, not many, I dare to be lonely. 
Fulfil my will as sovereign only, 
Watch where the stars flit by me pronely. 
Drink where the flood of the world's full bowl is, 
Still being all that ever has been most. 

What do I find worth while to seek ? 

I make and unmake all laws, 

I am their source and genuine cause. 

No reason have I to be mild or meek. 

This sense of self is the heart of pleasure, 

I joy in it past all bound or measure; 

Of the great world I shall take my fill 

And bend life to my separate will. 

The paler dehghts of reason 

Are out of time and season; 

The richest flowers that rarest grow. 

Red as the summer or white as snow, 

I pluck and hold as long as they please, 

Then toss afar for my greater ease. 

I live in every possible thrill 

Which makes the nerves a heaven so glad 

That the blinded and swooning will 

Loses awhile the kingship it had. 

I gather all things in one mighty throe, 

Hope or Death have no meaning here. 

And thus at once most inly know 

What is God himself without a fear. 



30 



Is this the perfect day which hovers around me, 

White as the noontide forever abiding ? 

Limits lost in me the Limiter, 

Nought above or below me to bound me ? 

Everything ahen sweeping and ghding 

Into my being's marvellous trimeter, 

About the arrogant might that am I ? 

Can this be bhss or self-bHnding sorrow ? 

Know I the depths that darkly He 

In the heart of the vast and surging to-morrow ? 

Or will Love like a ghost arise from its grave, 

And slay me with scorn more grand than the scorn 

With which I spurned its voice in the morn 

When it stood by my side to save ? 

To save ? saving or wrecking is only myself; 

I am at once both Ghibelline and Guelf, 

Empire and Church and Sovereign haught, 

The whole in my net of existence caught. 

And yet in the darkness of night a vision arises 

Of Life that more than mine own comprises, 

Over me stars and large interspaces 

And gradual resurgence of high golden places. 

Heaven beyond heaven in measureless gyres. 

And myriad sound of outpouring lyres. 

And far above all a central splendour 

That only is since it has an attender, 

A life that Hves but as it is not. 

And knows sweet Love for its substance and lot. 

31 



Ah me! this utter loneliness, 
And deepening sense of hopes that flee, 
The outer a dream and a blaze, 
A strange and purposeless maze. 
Myself the core of a sharp distress 
Drowned in a vague and mocking sea. 
Nay, I must burst this night-born anguish. 
Strike down the walls of my pain and prison, 
Awaken to act from the blisses which languish, 
Look forth again to a sun re-arisen. 
See that another, a loftier, a higher. 
Must be to answer my deepening desire. 
Reach to the Life that thinks me and folds me, 
Being itself the Love that creates. 
Being alone as it lives in another. 
Marvellous father and friend and mother. 
Finding Himself as He upholds me. 
Strength that executes ever and waits! 



II 

Adagio con molto Sentimento 
De Profundis 

I have sunk to the uttermost deep, I have passed the 

sharp verge of life. 
Above me I see the steep wherefrom I plunged in 

my strife; 

32 



I hear around me the roar of things that anguish 

and storm, 
And the hours are more and more aroused to slay 

and deform. 
This is not the darkness of death but a doom more 

bitterly stern, 
No merciful loss of breath, no end of the lights that 

burn 
Like manifold suns of day in the soul's joy-speeding 

dream 
When it seems to be sure of the way along the Senses' 

vague stream. 
Ah, would that it were even so, that thought had 

passed as it rose. 
That light were fled with its glow, that life were 

through with its shows. 
So I would flee and be freed, utterly breathless and 

done 
With every semblance of deed, or aught of action 

begun; 
But just as I utter the speech that would slay with 

imperious might. 
Then again the passions beseech, and Hfe leaps up 

into Hght. 
Somewhere between this pain and the strength that 

was mine before 
Must lie the infinite gain, the end that begins no 

more. 
I float on the savage tide, I see far out of my reach 

33 



The plains where men have died, the rounded and 

musical beach. 
I yield and give up attempt to attain the sweet loss 

of all, 
The bliss of being exempt from the pallid hopes that 

befall. 
Take me, O terrible wave, and bear me with you afar. 
Whatever the Hving grave, whatever the sinister star, 
Whatever the lowering doom, which nought is strong 

to dispel. 
The Hght that is fashioned of gloom, the love that is 

hate as well. 
I am borne by the wave afar to the islands that gleam 

and arise 
Like an ominous bearded star in the rapt and dream- 
ing skies. 
As I reach the wondrous shore, I hear the sound of 

the leaves 
Mixed with the lengthening roar which the wind 

from the billows receives. 
I know not what Hfe may be amid those shimmering 

bowers, 
Nor what fruit may load the tree with the great and 

luminous flowers; 
Yet here I rest and remain, and free myself from 

the tide, 
And look across the plain, where the shadowy figures 

glide. 
I am wholly purged of fear, I only abide and wait, 

34 



And the sound of the ocean near is the sound of a 

coming fate. 
I wander inland and note that many have trod before 
These meads unreached of a boat, this blossom- 
besprinkled floor; 
Yet hearken that bird's one song, repeated again 

and again, 
Bringing the thoughts in a throng that hold most 

gold for all men. 
This did I hear in my youth before the daytime was 

sad, 
And I dreamed that I knew the truth, and my very 

soul was glad. 
I would have none with me here, I feel that my 

thought alone 
Must meet and pierce with its spear the horror that 

has held the throne. 
I pass underneath the shade of the wood beside the 

lake 
With a silver light overlaid as if for my agonized 

sake; 
I feel the life sweep and thrill through my heart that 

lies wide and prone. 
And a deeper, larger will than the one I have haugh- 
tily known 
Takes me upon its warm breast as a mother soothes 

her child 
And the sun is low in the west and the day's song 

gentle and mild. 

35 



I long for the coming of night and the light of the 

tender moon 
When my guilt may sink out of sight with its haunt- 
ing mystical croon, 
For I see through the twiHght and mist a calmed 

benignant shore 
Whose allurement let none resist whom hither the 

tempests bore. 
Yea, help seems poured around and there comes 

from flower and leaf 
A something more than sound, a power to master 

all grief. 
I know the depth of the wrong into which I plunged 

and leapt, 
And I know the sense of the song which the mighty 

air has kept. 
Nay, I am ready to yield, and give myself wholly up 
To the life that floods the field, and drink from its 

infinite cup; 
And over the gradual sea the setting sun pours forth 
A glory, sudden, free, from south to effulgent north. 
I sink to a clear abyss and my soul gives forth its 

cry 
To the Hfe that is more than this, to the spirit beyond 

the sky. 
I have no shadow of fear, and gladly am lost and 

spent 
In the passion that rules the sphere, in the sea of 

divine intent. 

36 



Like a wind that arises and sweeps across the scarce 

trodden plain, 
Like power that never sleeps, like love without a 

stain 
That circles the planets and all, is outermost verge 

and bound, 
Is life's gold-glittering wall, is light and warmth and 

sound. 
So a purpose and feeling dim grows larger and clearer 

far. 
And bears me into its hymn and lights me as some 

fair star 
The violet folds of the dome that rises above vague 

space. 
And grants me a joy as of home, and glorifies all the 

strange place. 
I grow a part of the prayer that ascends as incense 

mild. 
And passes beyond the wide air, response to father 

from child. 
I thought myself merged in the whole, but am that 

whole as myself. 
And seem attaining the goal, the making of man 

from the elf. 
The whole that is truly me, and yet looks gladly 

above 
From the universe's tree, to the light that is wholly 

Love. 



37 



Ill 

Scherzo 

Morning 

Hear the raindrops clear 

Striking gainst the pane; 
Near the Hghts appear 

Fleeting down the plain 
And whitening all the sky where day grows fair 
amain. 

We know that the sea 

Where the raindrops fall, 
Gleeful as may be, 

Makes the sunbeams thrall, 
And ripples unto ripples sing and croon and call. 

Mist, no more resist 

What the sunshine tells; 
List! blue skies persist. 
Uttering noble spells, 
And your dim shrouds endure no more morn's 
miracles. 

Gold the day unrolled 

Glows through watery skies; 
Stoled in light's pure fold, 

38 



The sullen clouds arise, 
And speed and melt indeed from the sun's piercing 
eyes. 

Firm my heart infirm 

Grows as forth I gaze: 
Termless seems the term 
Of the increasing blaze, 
And tree and sky and lea glow while new lights 
amaze. 

Raindrops now complain 

No more, and the fire, 
Bane of what is vain. 
Life's uplift desire. 
Shows clear in leaf and brere and vanquished tem- 
pest's ire. 

Play of regnant day 

Fills the gladdening air; 
May should thus be gay. 

Season debonair, 
The year's beginning, dear and tender, mild and fair. 

Thus the amorous 

Springtime glows and grows, 
For us the glorious 

Promise after snows. 
The bright and golden light dispelling all our woes. 

39 



IV 

Allegro Triomphale 

The Over-Soul 

Over me the blue majestic vault, 
And the fair stars ghttering adown the night; 
The soft white radiance makes assault 
Upon the dark and vanquishes with hght. 
The palpitant splendour of the deep sky there 
Conquers in strength of loveHness, 
And the pale lustre everywhere 
Seems breathless with a mighty stress 
To bring to pass some project large and glorious, 
Some purpose long delayed but now at last victorious. 
No moon, only a revel of stars. 
And the white star-drift scattered across the sky. 
And the red planet Mars 
About at point to fly; 
Wheehng and circling in many a gyre, 
Height above wondrous height. 
Swift engirdments of vast desire, 
Pulsing in multitudinous Hght, 
The worlds on worlds of heaven obey 
A mighty central law, 
Unseen but strenuous more than they. 
The source and life of unfettered awe, 
The day that is whiter and grander than any day. 

40 



The winds grow balmy and mild, 
The leaf-flood sweeps across the plain, 
The fields and woods renew the wild 
And lovely race of blooms without a stain. 
Down from the mountains hoary and old, 
Fastnesses of shine and cold, 
The clear streams tumble and bicker and roll. 
And the earth shows again that Bliss is her soul. 
Yet nothing abides. 
Forever onward the miracle glides. 
Miracle still, and always a wonder. 
The courage that rises in calm or in thunder, 
The slow sure might of the glittering waters. 
The sudden cries of the fire's upleaping daughters, 
All strengths in changeless interchange 
Of Hfe and death and successes that range. 
Making the heart of the winter's chill. 
And soul of the joys the summers spill. 
In sooth all things are one. 
Kept in the sweep of the regnant sun. 
Who gives to each its stretch of dominion 
And flight on separate-hued, swift pinion — 
Happy to know 
From Him they flow, 
Happy in mystical communion 
With Him who is all in divisive reunion. 
Hearken to the voice of the manifold speeding years, 
Think the grand sum that fills the great cup 
Of space and brims it with mighty actions up 

41 



Through which one growing Light appears; 

Like the golden and benignant sun 

When the storm his course has run 

Over cloud and dark emergent 

Where the sloping heavens divergent 

Are flushed with radiance and fraught with glory, 

Making the whole a wonder story, 

One crescent clearing Blaze appears. 

Heart of space and Soul of the years, 

Love on high and one with Him, 

Freedom, that no fate can dim. 

Freedom, nerve and force of History, 

Wrapped at first in gloom and mystery, 

Victor now above the appalHng 

Thunder cries about him falKng, 

Son and King and Sovereign Law, 

One with all past break or flaw. 

Know the Flame whose passioned art 

Is to give a severed being 

Unto loves forever seeing 

That High Love from whom they start 

As their goal, and finding thus 

Freedom unmysterious, 

Freedom, reconciling Name 

Which all separate spirits claim. 

Bringing forth the whole that is 

Source of undiminishing ecstasies. 

Listen to the singing through the splendour, 

42 



In the morning of the year, 
Not the time that was the sender 
Of old sorrows, thin and drear. 
But the year, which, free from fear. 
Knows the star that cannot veer. 
Touched throughout with Love, the blender 
Of the coming with the past. 

Of the ancient with the new. 
The New which must forever last, 
The Glory of the True. 

And I too am caught in rapture. 

Mingled, yea, but oh! not lost, 
Having found the way to capture 
Hopes upon the vague winds tost, 
Currents with each other crost, 
Heat the friend of bitter frost, 
Fine and marvellous adapture. 
Whereby the All is the One, 

And the single is radiant ever. 
And each holds the briUiant depth of the sun. 
And past is the Spell of the Never. 

Lofty glows the dream's Inventor, 

And the vision is High God, 
Into his soul I dare to enter. 

Timeless permanent period. 

Mystic many-blossoming sod, 

Freed from suffering's rage and rod, 
43 



Winning Heaven's divinest centre 

In the light that has always shone, 

In the joy that has no beginning, 
In the victory over despair and moan, 

In the strength made stronger through sinning! 

RESISTANCE 

The voices that you hear are harsh and crude, 
You shrink from every sound maleficent, 
Your wearied head upon your hands is bent. 
And thoughts come crowding on you, brood on brood 
Of grim-faced night-birds, cleaving, harsh and rude. 
Their flight from realms of anguish whence is sent 
The test whereby the deepmost heart is rent — 
Mad disbelief in the mind's higher mood 

And passioned love of what is low and base; — 
And will you yield ? Are you yourself indeed ? 
Or but a leaf borne onward by the breeze ? 
Against the tempter lift your tearless face. 
And though your very life with agony bleed. 
Be what you will, not what your pleasure sees! 

HOMER 

Green-clad the mountain rises near the reverberant 
seashore; 

White in its pale olive groves, and serene as its deep- 
blue heavens, 

44 



Stands the irregular village where life moves lightly 

and gaily, 
Quaint long streets with their vine-wreathed dwell- 
ings and clambering ever 
Toward the temples well built for the gods who 

know them and love them. 
Thence the iEgean*s slim ripples are seen in their 

silk-bright lustre; 
Waters that bind these shores to the Asian lands and 

the fathers. 
Statues circle the temples in glorious splendour and 

pureness, 
Also a theatre rises beside with its trees and its grasses 
Tremulous under the winds that scatter sharp gleams 

and thin shadows. 
Day after day speeds over the calmness that makes 

its blest home there, 
Bringing the changes of beautiful glow and silvery 

night-time; 
Golden the seasons repeat the soft tale of the year's 

willing bounty. 
Touching with gentlest of fingers the hearts who are 

gentle and patient, 
FeeHng beneath every sadness a sweet and divine 

consolation. 
Busy with toils that reward and are full of a lofty 

refreshment. 
Sure that the God of the Light holds all in his mar- 
vellous keeping, 

45 



Often the heights resound with their songs of un- 
challenged rejoicing. 

Viewed from the great white harbour across the 
voluminous waters, 

Blue in their garment of mist and yet clear in the 
wavering sunlight, 

Lie faint islands whence come the long boats of the 
talkative traders, 

Bearing the wares which are more than the kinds 
they offer for barter. 

So the glad days are fleet in the life of the art-loving 
village, 

Deep in the faith that the earth and the winds and 
the seas are their guardians. 

Wondering still why war should prey on the fate- 
driven brethren. 

Those who strive in the mightier regions afar from 
their pleasance, 

Brethren, indeed, since Greek blood flows in this 
peace and that clamour. 

Fair are the festal days when the poets stand in the 
shadow 

Cast by the mountain over the theatre thronged and 
attentive, 

Pouring forth nobly the wide-winged dreams and 
the hopes that are in them; 

Then the mysterious chorus voices its high exultation. 

Hymning the triumph gained by the mighty myth- 
ical hero 

46 



Who must again endure before the dim tears and 

the rapture, 
Hearkening wonderful words that are greater than 

doer and deed were; 
Then their white-garmented maidens with baskets 

of flowers 
Wind up the street and repeat their songs to the 

favourable goddess, 
Promising plenty to field and to meadow and joy to 

the household. 
Often the graybeard council, ringed with its reverent 

young men, 
Gravely dispute on the needs and the ways that are 

good for the village; 
Also, the lithe-limbed youths vie duly in racing and 

boxing, 
Gathering at last where the elders let fall from lips 

persuasive 
Words of the sacred wisdom that mid the environing 

silence 
Hears what the lofty immortal gods are certainly saying 
Down in the deeps of the souls who are filled with 

the purpose to listen. 
All the cool streets are bare and deserted this shim- 
mering morning. 
Scarcely a man to be seen at his usual labour or pas- 
time. 
Open the doors of the houses, the children at play 

with the nurses, 

47 



Old men and young with the wives and the maidens 

away on some errand, 
Jubilant, joyous and bright, in response to a long 

expectance; 
For in the night had arrived from the islands rising 

to eastward. 
White-sailed, blue-prowed, fair, with its pennant 

flying, a vessel, 
Looked for day after day, and amidst of the great- 

thewed sailors. 
Regal, majestic, the poet, crowned with the love of 

the people. 
Early the voice of the crew had aroused the sleepers 

and called them, 
Tasks for the time were abandoned and toil re- 
mained at a standstill; 
Down to the clear white wharves the resistless ones 

hastened and hurried. 
Eager to know what the words that had flown from 

the fate-building outlands. 
Ages ago in the storied and hero-peopled aforetime 
Giant fathers of these had escaped from a hate- 
bringing horror. 
Haunting the seas and the lands with the ghosts of a 

feud ancestral; 
Here had the mountain allured them, and brought 

them to pause in the valley, 
Here had awakened the sound of a wide endeavour 

and labour; 

48 



Swiftly the walls of the far-seen town made richer 

the seashore, 
Brilliant, white, and replete with a varying peace 

and soft pleasure. 
Home of a race who were able to raise the acclaim of 

the victor. 
Making the wilderness show what the strength of a 

man could accompUsh. 
Round the long wharves men crowded and plied the 

swart sailors with questions. 
Travellers kind of the kin, and aware of weightier 

wonders; 
These they burned to rehearse to the impetuous 

large-eyed seekers; 
Forth they leaped from the ship; both flute and the 

lyre made music, 
Joyously passed the long line to the morn-clothed 

high-columned temples. 
Carried the offerings meet to the Lord of the Light 

and his Sister, 
Raised the rich songs to the skies and gladdened their 

up-going pathway. 
Soon the cool theatre held the impatient and restless 

assemblage; 
Forth then the poet arose, a divine man, noble and 

stately. 
Grand were his presence and bearing, and strong 

were his steps and his movements, 
49 



Dusky his hair as it circled his forehead, broad and 

unfurrowed, 
Dusky the short curHng beard, that concealed not 

his mouth's gentle firmness 
White the still, thoughtful face, and the marvellous 

eyes' wide splendour 
Gazed at the noontide sun unafraid of his mightiest 

radiance. 
Wonderful orbs that were closed to sights of the 

earth and the summer, 
Seeing alone great truths that were props to the wide- 
stretched heavens. 
Having resigned what belonged to the life of the 

brilHant daytime. 
Buried afar in the deep that contains both the Good 

and the Eternal. 
High he stood there above them, larger than friends 

and than fellows. 
Eager to touch the lyre, new-shaped for the great 

new music, 
Tones to which the fair stars revolve in their periods 

and glory. 
Thus did he stand before them, serene and pro- 
phetic and gentle. 
All the hushed multitude waiting the sound of his 

passionate singing. 
Next from his lyre flowed forth the chords that were 

utterly thrilHng, 

50 



Full of the mystical past but making the heart most 

earnest, 
Rich with voices foreshowing the destiny-mastering 

future, 
Voices dim-sounding and palhd, then rising higher 

and higher; 
Into the goldening glow were their souls uplifted 

and melted, 
While from his heart burst forth the message he 

came to dehver: 
"Hear, O luminous God, slay thou with the per- 

ceant arrows 
All the grim glooms of the night that are flying yet 

round and about us. 
Lord of the mighty bow, and sovereign of song and 

of singers. 
Send thy secrets aflame, and across thy palpitant ether; 
Forth from the twilight's clouds that engird the dim 

rise of the morning. 
Shine and show thyself in the heavens divine in glad 

Free as the mighty-winged winds that are pouring 
superb rejoicings. 

Saying that thou art the soul and the heart of the 
oncoming Freedom, 

Saying that thou art the strong to uphold the full 
godhead within us. 

Still the unconquered eld deep-threatens and dark- 
ens to seaward, 

51 



All her dull armies assemble and mutter their fierce 

imprecations, 
We, their descendants, yet hold them in awe but 

dare no longer 
Dwell in the magical mist which encircles and subtly 

enfolds them; 
So we war with our kind, we pulse with a manifold 

sorrow, 
Call from our hearts unto them and invite them to 

new-made altars. 
Where old Asian gods once clothed in soft myriad 

shadows 
Shine reborn and resplendent in wisdom white and 

in manhood. 
God of the sun and of singing, Apollo, master and 

music, 
Heart of our hearts, who didst toil in the woodland 

as we and in meadow. 
Fleeing from Heaven to dwell with the friend, be- 
loved King Admetus, 
Shine in the skies and uprise, O lordly and manly 

and noble. 
Finished in beauty and courage, fair with the gift 

of calm selfhood. 
Clear and unmixt with the whole, nor dissolved in 

the vapours of godhead; 
So in the old deep tales rehearsed of the graybeard 

fathers, 

52 



Personal, high, most pure, and complete in soul and 

in vigour. 
Pouring to Heaven itself the worship blest of the spirit, 
Didst thou crush under foot the dull poisonous 

strength of the Python, 
Coils that would circle and break us backward to 

Time and his errors; 
So thou slewest sadly the dolorous queen's dear 

children. 
Knowing not well how her sons could be saved from 

that doom and destruction. 
Woven for us as for them, hadst thou not arisen to 

release us; 
Thus from the deadening gloom thy light has brought 

us dissevered. 
Lord of the East and Leader of us and the Might- 
iest Future; 
Like unto thee we grow, strong, simple, and perfect 

in courage; 
Also the barbarous tribes that stormily roar in the 

Northlands 
Clothed in Cimmerian darkness shall know thou art 

Master and must be. 
Taking from thee inspiration and learning thy 

musical secret. 
How thou sovereign art and the lover and bringer 

of wisdom. 
Certainly bringer to all of the gift that is noblest and 

chiefest, 

53 



Making their spirits as thine, personal in manhood 

and freedom." 
Longer he sang and aroused them, with splendid 

harmonious purpose, 
Shattering wholly the chains ancestral that held and 

yet fettered, 
Making them hear of the terrible war wherein they 

must conquer. 
War of the West with the East, grim war of the son 

with the father. 
War that shall end when the Toiler sprung out of 

the loins of the Dreamer 
Back shall pour into veins of the sire his power 

transcendent. 
Both commingled and one in a joy that is sure and 

immortal. 
So he sang of the heroes and all deep hearts were 

uplifted and shaken; 
Gladly the day went by with its sacred worships and 

feastings. 
Then as the golden sun shone brilliant over the 

mountain, 
Blind eyeballs upraised to its crimsoning, blazing 

effulgence. 
Bright he stood in the boat with its forward-bending 

oarsmen. 
While the rapt villagers silently watched him pass 

from the harbour, 

54 



f 



f 



Finding him last as a star on the dark blue distant 
horizon. 

SONG AND POET 

The song was so tender and sweet 

That the maiden who sang 
Felt with the softening sounds' retreat 

How the quick tears sprang. 

They praised the maiden and song, 

Then turned where stood 
The Poet whose shaken heart grew strong, 

For his work was good. 

They praised and idly they passed. 

But the Poet thought 
Faintly the unthinking soul holds glassed 

What the years have wrought. 

LOIN DU BAL 
(Waltz Movement — Gillett) 

I 

The sounds pierce through me with their marvellous 
passion, 
Faint though they come to my lonesomeness here; 
Why should I grieve in this lover-like fashion 
Because her fancies wander and veer .? 
55 



The moonlight touches the deep-shadowed garden. 
Dreamily seen from the balcony's height, 

And my inmost soul should supplicate pardon 
For feehng aught painful in such a night. 

II 

Hist! how the sounds arise and falter, 

Swell and fade like emotions that change, 
Hope that looks forward and fears to alter, 

Fear that is hopeful and gladsome and strange; 
Softly the music climbs up and pauses. 

Lingers on summit of joy past all speech; 
Strange — is it not ? — that the deft phrase causes 

Pain when it falls in my hearing's reach ? 

HI 

The old, old story! some men are chosen, 

And some are left outside the gate 
Where the landscape stretches, disleafed and frozen, 

And mocks them abandoned and desolate. 
She whirls in the dance's magical mazes 

And yields herself to its purposeless charm, 
Perchance gives ear to the meaningless phrases 

That garb their folly in vague alarm. 

IV 

Luringly sweeps to my heart the cadence. 
Nay, I could weep though the theme be bliss; 

56 



Does the stroke of fate admit of evadence ? 

Can hopelessness be more helpless than this ? 
Sweet with the subtle mystery of distance, 

Pulsing the soul and the fervour of youth, 
Drawing me on with seductive insistence. 

Building a dream of devotion and truth, 



Magical music, that tears me in sunder, 

Scorn me not broken by fate and by pain. 
Raise not for me thy palace of wonder. 

Leave me at peace from thy mocking disdain! 
Outside thy garden I pause a brief season. 

See through the roses thy joyance within. 
Wander away and ask not the reason 

Why my sharp struggle no further could win; 

VI 

Even as to-night I left the gay revellers. 
Found this door open, forgotten of all. 
And dream by mere chance of the anarchic rank- 
levellers 
Who threaten this music with ruin and fall. 
Nay, not so serious! Let me not think of them! 

Why should my failure thrust me on dreams 
Which, hke wine poisonous, madden who drink of 
them. 
Peopling the brain with the strangest of schemes. 
57 



VII 

Yet in the dark lurks the wide-grinning spectre, 

Growing conspicuous as the ages pass, 
Ready to spill the gay-perfumed nectar, 

And to shiver this feasting as brittle glass. 
No more of these fancies! bitter and cruel! 

Let me not hasten to join with the wrath. 
Or to make part in the swift-coming duel, 

Leaving once more wrecked lands in its path. 

VIII 

Again that passage! how it yearns in its buoyance, 

Thrills and ascends and surely attains! 
Fitfully playing with its gay clasped joyance, 

Certain past loss of its infinite gains! 
Softly I hear all that full-brimmed gladness. 

Striking my soul with a forefeel of doom, 
Presage to me of lingering sadness. 

Monotone grim of a Hfelong gloom. 

IX 

Why should she Hsten to what my heart harbours .? 

What should I bring to her life of hght .? 
Let her hours fleet in vine-clad rose-arbours. 

Know but swift changes of bright and more bright. 
Hark to that slow-moving, faint-growing murmur. 

Whisper of love at its secret and mid, 

58 



Now for an instant hesitant, firmer, 
Now in seclusion of ecstasy hid. 

X 

All the pent feelings pour through me in surges; 

Back to your fastnesses deep in my heart, 
I will strive hard till no last one emerges 

From the drear dungeon's most echoless part. 
Just for this once I know all your sweetness, 

Let you flow forth to the music's faint thrill, 
Flush with the passion's fiery completeness, 

Let the rich joyance my being upfill. 

XI 

Round me descends the soft-Hghted vision, 

Grows to the actual, flatters and glows; 
We two are together in regions elysian. 

Whom Time shall sever with all his snows. 
Together ? Yea, and the splendour-winged summer 

Flushes the land from mountain to sea, 
Rose crowds on rose, each ardent newcomer 

Glad of the glory to breathe and to be. 

XII 

We are the might and the heart of the bhsses 
Thrilling through waters and sun-mastered air; 

Cloud speeding by wafts to cloud its swift kisses. 
Everything sings of the noble and fair. 

59 



Lo! I attain my crown of successes, 
Led by her eyes from peak unto peak, 

Scale fervour- footed Time's utmost recesses, 
Seeing beyond what I knew not to seek. 

XIII 

All I have failed in, her life-giving laughter 

Changes to magical flower in my clasp. 
Flower that has might on the here and hereafter, 

Giving their utmost and soul to my grasp. 
Am I awake ? The music enlarges, 

Glows in a soft and assuring farewell. 
Sinks slowly at last, and dyingly charges 

Hope not to loosen itself from the spell. 

XIV 

Puerile folly! Here in the moonlight 

I loiter and give vague fancy the rein. 
Playing with dreams that the truth-showing noonlight 

Will change at a stroke to mere shapes of disdain. 
Into the ball-room! A moment I linger. 

Then forth in the generous all-covering dark; 
Love I will touch not with least tip of finger. 

She will not know of my passing nor mark. 

XV 

Further I seek not; fitful souled pleasure 

Sings her last lure for me, thrills her last note; 

60 



Surely I know the sense of the measure 
Which from her towers may falter or float; 

Yea, the response has been made already, 
Nor will I quarrel with what is decreed; 

Outside of life, with gaze fixed and steady, 
I wait and ponder what is living indeed. 

THE ARBITRATION TREATY 

("E PUR SI muove") 

Yet the world moves; although the bitter Past 

Lingering enthroned demands to be obeyed; 

Across the seas the nations war-arrayed 
Still stand at gaze, and hearken for the vast 
And harsh call unto strife, the thunderous blast 

Of trumpets while the fields are sore dismayed; 

In Time's great balance such rule duly weighed 
Has been found wanting, its sure doom forecast; 

For two strong peoples shape the newer thought, 
With joined might invoke the reign of peace. 

Seeing each man's fatherland is where is sought 
Some nobler hope for true fife's bright increase, 
And of one blood is goodness, and release 

From world-care by the whole world's toil is wrought! 

ETTca HrepoevTa 

Word of clear feather 
Haunting the weather 
6i 



Of virginal smiles and chaste mild joyance, 

Utter thy message 

Full of sweet presage, 
Sing of the lands set free from annoyance. 

Lo! the swift legions 

Peopling the regions 
Of the glad soul; there it is Maytime, 

There the rapt singers 

And wonder-bringers 
Flutter and fleet in changeless daytime. 

Word of dusk feather 

Haunting the weather 
Of storm-cloud frowns and self-nursed sorrow, 

What wouldst thou utter 

And darkly mutter 
To gloom the glow of the new-born morrow ? 

Seek the recesses 

And wildernesses 
Of the sad soul; there is no bright time, 

There the white morning, 

The twilight scorning, 
Slays not with rays the changeless night-time. 

Hark! from what taverns 
Or sombre caverns 
In the large soul's untrodden dim reaches, 
62 



Sound imprecations, 
Fierce exclamations, 
Woe that for pity the wide world beseeches. 

Ah, through the gloaming 

Low words are roaming, 
Said under breath and filled with sad gladness, 

Soft-voiced singing. 

The fountains up-springing 
Of hope Hfe-bringing in the soul's waste sadness. 

Not sole and lonely. 

Pained and only, 
Shut in the prison of the selfed existence, 

Soul, dost thou Hnger 

And touch but with finger 
The fife that is all in gracious persistence. 

Lo! the vast sound-world, 

Lo! the glad-found world. 
Where thou art free and from thee dost sunder 

Thy body-fetters. 

And grief-begetters. 
And leapst in the Hght of the world-old wonder! 

In what an ocean 
Of joyous commotion 
Fleetest thou now, from islet to islet, 

63 



Thou art the real, 
Thou the ideal, 
Vision and might, swift pinnace and pilot! 

Round world of voices. 

World that rejoices, 
World that is song and beauty and measure, - 

Here is thy dwelling, 

O victory-compelling. 
Here, O soul, is thy hearthstone, thy pleasure. 



IN THE AFTERNOON 

The shadows are cool and clear, 
The atmosphere is peace. 

Outside the mild sun shines. 
Within is safe release. 



The tumults of morn are done. 
Only far echoes resound. 

Desires are faded and dead, 

Fallen like leaves to the ground. 

Gifts have the gray hours brought, 
Gray hours of the afternoon, 

Soft hghted hours, whose sun 
Faces the lampless moon. 

64 



Not the wild blooms of youth, 

Not passion's golden flowers, 
But blossoms wan of hue, 

Plucked in Hfe's gentler bowers. 

Sweeter is rest and calm 

Than ecstasy's fierce pain, 
And sweeter this sad bhss 

Than all youth strove to gain. 

The calm of twilight descends 
Unvexed of sunset, and gray. 

Star-crowned, and bringer of dreams. 
Day's shadow, dearer than day. 

THE CHURCH 

Down through the ages rolls a loudening voice 
That in the distance sounded Hke a song, 
Low-toned, most difficult to understand. 
Somehow full-fraught with messages of peace, 
And on the suffering heart in vocal gold 
Bursting with sun-swift, wondrous luminousness. 
As the long years of the revolving world 
Grew ripe, and the clear spring of Time gave place 
To summer's flush of glowing History 
With glories past the shine of earlier hours. 
The deepened harmonies of the clear song 
Grew strong and full, persuasions sweet, 

65 



Articulate words gleamed through the woof of sound, 
Sharp emphasis of meaning took the soul, 
And men beheved the intelligence from on high 
Wrapped in the mystery of those passioned tones. 
Long did I stand in hope to catch the sense 
Of the great chorus of the most high powers. 
But in the darkness of the storm-swept night 
I felt the leaden moments, and in the grave 
Of my sad heart I buried my complaint. 
Yet unto every man his hour and time; 
I heard again the voices, understood. 
And in such feeble words as I command 
Dare reproduce their large significance, 
And, though they did seem many, yet as one 
Came the rich purport of their revelation. 
"I cannot err; in symbols fit and pure 
I garment God's supremest mysteries. 
What though thy dull heart may not understand ? 
I lead by sure and providential paths 
Into the realms of rest and work divine. 
Thinkst thou the child, weak, undiscerning man, 
Could reach unhelped the house that God has made 
And holds in multitudinous array 
For those who, having conquered, sink on sleep ? 
Through all the ages, as a giant oak 
May grow in girth, a shade beneficent 
My gnarled trunk and sweep of foliage 
Have spread that the tired nations might find peace, 
And hark my murmurings oracular. 

66 



I am the bride, the spouse of the high God, 
My children sit beside their Father's knee, 
And with the illumination of his smile 
Find the hours pass in subtle melodies. 
Thinkst thou it nought to live engirt by me, 
To feel upon thine anguished Hps the taste 
Of God's own truth, his body, soul, and Hfe, 
To know thyself ensnared by my clear net 
Of utmost love, to have the passage swift 
Of thy enhanced days grow purest gold 
Encircled by my wondrous witcheries ? 
Nay, thou shalt not escape being led by me 
Unto thy home, the bosom of the sky. 
Thou findst me ministering to thine infant heart. 
And with my symbols, pictures, tales, and saints 
Teaching what else would strike upon thine ear 
As sounds ineffable, meant for the gods. 
Not trembling, searching men like thee and thine. 
More than once have I stood upon the earth 
In fleshly garb, the son of God and man. 
And walked awhile the weary plains of time. 
And through the mouths of all my prophets dead 
And living have I spoken what all men 
Need well to heed. I point unto the sun, 
I breathe a charmed Hfe, I raise my call; 
O barken and make answer, ye rny sons 
And daughters, let my cry as though a sword 
Divide your ears and reach your inmost souls; 
Come unto me, ye weary and oppressed, 

67 



That I may gather you within the fold 

And shield you from the wolves whose hungry howl 

Makes the night shudder with intensest fear." 

I speak as best I can with faltering voice 

The words my apprehensive mind received; 

But, as a memory is Hke the past, 

An echo like the wondrous song we heard, 

A ghost at dawn like the dead friend we loved, 

The vaporous vocal shadow of my dream 

Floats through the air around me and half shames 

My impotence fulfilled of bitter grief 

Because it holds not clearer, better grasped, 

The secret of the springs of Life that came 

In sudden visitation to my soul. 

ELEGY 

Ah me! I am sad! do you know why ? 

I cannot tell; 
Gold clouds upon the sky. 
The night at point to die. 

And day is begun. 

Ah me! I am glad! do you know why ? 

I cannot tell; 
Strange thoughts fleet down the sky, 
The dream at point to die. 

And life is done! 



68 



TWILIGHT 

Across the western skies 
A bar of soft gray lies, 

Edged with a crimson Hne; 
And all the pallid blue 
With dying light soaked through 

Fades slowly from its shine. 

The trees are grayish green, 
And the near field is seen 

Slow-sobering in its glow; 
From houses scattered far 
White smoke-curls dimly star 

The deep sky with their snow. 

A drowsy hum succeeds 
The tumult of day's needs, 

A murmur full of peace; 
And weary toil and care 
In this sweet moment dare 

To hope their pain shall cease. 

DESTINY 

(South Chicago, Illinois. The Boy Speaks) 

My father works in the foundry. Last night 

He took my mother and me 
A long, long walk, with the lake on the right . 

A wonderful thing to see. 

69 



When a child I had asked him to tell me where 

Was the blaze I saw in the sky; 
And he said he would surely take me there 
If I cared to go by and by. 

We came to a gate, and entered in, 

And went through a littered yard. 
And passed a chimney that was a bin 

For coal heaps black and hard; 
I saw men pour them from rumbling cars 

Into the fiery throat. 
And the noise that came from behind the bars 

Had a strange and fearful note. 

We stood on a platform and saw men move 

A huge thing turned to the sky; 
The iron pivots slipped in their groove. 

And it fronted the stars on high; 
Grim figures walked around in the dark 

While muttered (here and there) 
Strange fires that flickered and smouldered stark 

Through the thick and frightened air. 

They told me to watch the grim black thing, 
And suddenly from it there sprang 

A blaze upleaping and shivering 

With a roar and a steady clang. 

The vast hall shone with the blue-red flames 
And the rugged men stood forth 
70 



Like elves with the queer and twisted names 
In the stories from the North. 

Every bright colour wantoned there, 

The red of smoke-conquering fire, 
The gold that glows through the morning air, 

The sky's blue, high and yet higher; 
They rose from the round and yawning mouth 

In many a glittering tongue. 
Then joined in a mist as in the South 

From the trees the moss is swung. 

I felt that I had a fire within 

Made up of as many hues, 
A seething mass from which I might win 

Delight as my heart should choose; 
A gold as full of fire and glow, 

A blue as shining and clear, 
A white like a mixture of heat and snow, 

A red as fierce and as dear. 

I felt I could weave these colours fine 

Into wonders for eyes to see. 
That were Hke the eyes I knew were mine. 

Deep in the soul of me; 
Wonders that came from the story-books, 

Stretches of gay-rippled waves. 
Deeds of strong men and shadowy nooks 

The softened sunset laves. 

71 



Now that is just what I long most to do, 

My fingers ache for the toil, 
The pictures fill me, splendid and new, 

My memory^s glittering spoil. 
My brain is bright with the vanishing shapes. 

And the glow that is over them all, 
My hands reach for them as for rich grapes 

That cover the latticed wall. 

I have stood down town in a silent room. 

And held my mother's hand. 
As my thrilling eyes saw before them loom 

The pictures, briUiant and grand. 
I felt that I too was one of those 

Who could walk by the waters clear. 
Or look at the morning's opening rose. 

And make them reappear. 

But I am only the half-fed son 

Of a slave in the foundry there, 
And my fixed and certain race is run 

Like his in that clouded air. 
Rude is the path marked out for me. 

And though I shall strive to win. 
My work, I am sure, will always be 

Marred since I must begin 

With everything hard to conquer first. 
With my very way to build, 

72 



Not like the men who are born and nursed 
In the joy that high Beauty has willed. 

At school the little I burn to learn, 
The toil that I long for and love. 

The labour whereto mine eyes must yearn. 
The hours all others above, 

These too are lessened — O sadness and shame! 

For a boy, it seems, should know 
Just what will bring him success in the game 

Where few reap while the many sow. 
A little light on that dusty road 

Is enough for the patient poor; 
Too much might help them to place the load 

In part on the richer boor. 

I shall strive my best and hope to gain 

Something from dull-eyed fate. 
But in the stress of my toil and pain 

I shall reach the goal somewhat late. 
Yet if I attain, I shall make it my task 

To fashion an easier path 
For those who unanswered unweariedly ask, 

And help them against the old wrath. 

CIRCLES 

Look to the soft gray sky 

Flushed with a dream of rose, 
Pale as hope fleeting by, 

7Z 



Sweet as the smile that glows 
On whitening Hps that sink into repose. 

So the grim day is done, 

So the harsh noise is fled, 
So the high rest is won. 

So peace has us to bed, 
And stress of struggle falls resigned and dead. 

Yet with the morrow's light 

Upsprings and strives anew 
The Victory's pauseless might, 

The Conquest's hfe that drew 
Our deepest minds to know the whole these knew. 

Nay, have your own loved way, 

Say it is rest to rest. 
Not from the day to day. 

But night's crest unto crest, 
Silence and sleep that seem to you the best. 

My heart illumined glows 

To see end re-begin. 
To find the movement shows 

Return to good or sin; 
Whichso it be, the round, clear soul must win. 

Lo! dark may not endure. 

Struck by the warfare sore, 
Working its own sure cure, 

74 



Leaving room more and more 
For Light which Heaven self-turned must still adore. 



INSPIRATION 

How dare I doubt ? Is not my soul at one 
With powers supernal, and the company 
Of wise celestials, who from near the seat 
Of God himself bring messages to me. 
And flood my passive intellect with light 
That comes from the world's inmost sphere of love. 
And fills my heart with joy in highest things ? 
Am I not the prophetic one, the voice 
Wherethrough God speaks, the trumpet-soul, the lyre 
He plays on so that songs from him may fall 
And flow in sounds attuned to human ears ? 
How dare I doubt ? I pour the impetuous whirl 
Of my fierce words into all listening hearts 
That from the fields of hope and thought the weeds 
Of sin and hate may be consumed in breath 
Of a great wind of wholesome fire and truth. 
And then fair flowers may grow in spaces cleared. 
And hke the earth in spring s new garb of green 
And dehcate grasses, pale sweet blooms, and trees 
Shaking aloft their mist of gray young leaves, 
The soul recalled may image Heaven's own best. 
I dare not cease, and when the brutish crowd 
Lift up their cries against me, shall I shrink 
And falter on my way ? I am the Right 

IS 



Come down to earth. If men had eyes to see, 

The blazing comet of my progress through 

The world would dim the sun's mid-summer flame. 

If men decry my words and tangle me 

In their wise speeches, and with questions rude 

Trouble the tranquil tenor of my thought. 

Am I not sent commissioned from on high 

To hurl fierce anger on their impious heads, 

And bid my followers spurn with ridicule 

Their silly mouthings ? And yet at times — alack ! — 

In the dark night and hours of utter gloom 

When thou, O God, forsakest me, and I 

Grope even as lesser men nor find the truth, 

A sense of scorn and fear comes over me 

Abandoned of the white angelic choir, 

I think that truth is no more mine, and deem 

My words are mixtures of the great and base 

Like other men's, deem that I have a soul 

Not all pervaded, wholly moved of thee. 

But subject to the whims of personal will. 

And natural circumstance, and human love. 

Ay me! on what a perilous verge I stand! 

Am I not then on earth the truth of truth 

Which sweeps away as winds the autumn leaves 

All mundane falsities to sure decay. 

And brands on folly's brow the stamp of scorn ? 

Yet doubt will come to make assurance pale 

And fall from height of regnancy serene. 

I fear I am no messenger — I fear 

76 



God has not laid his absolute hand on me. 

This is a Hell past all men's thoughts. I lean 

Against Heaven's gate but do not enter in. 

It is not so. I am the world's sure king — 

As Truth is king — and yet the doubt returns. 

I mind me of the sad and solemn words 

In days long past my dead friend subtly spoke 

As he lay white and still and every breath 

We feared would bear his soul away. He said: 

"Seek thou the Truth, but think not its own Hfe 

Can flow unceasingly in mortal moulds ; 

Like winds whose home no man may hope to find, 

Like light that comes and goes more swift than birds, 

Like waves that rise and sink into the sea, 

All inspirations come and fleet and die." 

But I have been the Right through all my days. 

My nights, my hours; I feel as one a fire 

Has shrivelled into dust, as one a power 

Divine has crushed remorselessly, as one 

Dead while aUve. But I am paltering — 

I must arouse me and fare forth to hurl 

My fierce anathemas upon the fools 

Who say me nay, nor bend their supple minds 

To me who am the very depth of thought 

And inmost soul of things, the peerless strength 

That builds all forms and makes them what they are. 



77 



SONNETS 

I 
The Expedient 

The road winds round the hill unto the top, 
Not always easy to be seen or found, 
And many an alluring burst of sound 

Bids the slow traveller pause and gladly stop. 

Here a stray vine calls for a needed prop, 

And here the ways with shaggy rocks abound; 
Here is a place of smoother, flowery ground, 

And here one longs a withered bough to lop; — 

Yet must you know the curve of the hid track, 
And how to use all these delays and lures 
That you may surely gain the summit fair; 
Else, ere you think, the midnight, starless, black. 
The night that falls and evermore endures. 
Will hold you fast within some noisome lair. 

II 

The Just 

Break through the envious thicket — anywhere — 
Crush what impedes your certain onward march; 
These golden glooms shut out the solemn arch 

Of the blue skies than any gloom more fair. 

78 



Close your dulled ears to musical notes more rare 
Than waters where the desert's hot sands parch; 
Who cares for foliage, oak, or spruce, or larch, 

Or blossomed ease when the Just bids us dare! 

These are the voices of the sirens sweet. 

Who lurk beneath the shadows of old boughs, 
And make your soul faint with their magic plays 
Dancing across the green with swift white feet; 
Hark but the sound that all your breast must rouse. 
There — from on high — past the bewildering 
maze! 

Ill 
The Right 

Be not so reckless, pause awhile and gaze, 

Much has been gained, the steep wall makes a turn 
And the new sunrise deigns again to burn 

After the gloom's dejecting and deflecting ways; 

Yes, here make pause, and ponder on the blaze 
By which we reached this height; think not to spurn 
The help which came to haggard hearts that yearn, 

And gave them ease after despairing days. 

Fixed on the summit shall our eyes yet be, 
We swerve not though we linger here at rest, 
And take such calm as these thick trees may 
make; 

79 



Behold, below the myriad-glittering sea, 
Around the powers of evil dispossessed, 
Above the glow glad for its own pure sake. 

JUSTIFICATION 

I slew her, — why should I deny what ye, 

judges, and all men must surely know ? 
Nor was flight ever in my thought, escape 
That was of none effect, because perforce 

1 bore my punishment along with me 

In abject fear, and loss of friendly hands, 
And bitter life in a dread solitude 
Which dark suspicion wove around my feet. 
I dreamt not of your laws and penalties, 
Your strong enactments for your household peace, 
Your web of potent limits which unseen 
Gird all men round and surely strangle them 
When they attempt to burst the filmy bonds. 
Through all these years my pain has blotted out 
The world and men; and I have walked my way 
Through its thick mist in utter suUenness 
As though my heart had turned to stone or I, 
Devoid of soul, Hved as a body might 
By force galvanic roused to show of strength. 
She was my wife, and in the distant days 
I loved her truly as an honest man. 
I had my purposes, and longed to see 
My slow-developing ideal grow 

80 



A visible power within the outer world, 

A might incarnate for man's highest weal, 

A helper in the time's continuous toil. 

It were a foolish thing to tell how sweet 

Were in those days her acquiescences. 

How thick she wove her flatteries round my soul, 

As a wild vine enwreathes a forest oak; 

For she would aid me in my thankless work. 

And sit in pride beside me when mankind 

Hailed me their benefactor. So her smile 

Illumed her face when I poured out my hopes. 

And dropping fickle kisses she would speak 

Fierce praises of my large beneficence. 

And sybiUine prophecies of the near hour 

When I should be enthroned the king and friend 

Of all those labouring sadly under skies 

That were just shuddering with expectant sun. 

I cannot tell what change came on our joy. 
But slowly, as a storm creeps up the air 
And spreads its dark domain till everything 
Is gulfed in gloom, a shadow stole upon us. 
And shed its grievous twilight on the spot 
That seemed a reUc of the golden age 
Somehow left blooming in the wilderness 
Of this our mortal Hfe and pilgrimage. 
I cannot say her smiles grew less; — she seemed 
As strangely perfect in her ways and looks 
As when her fascination's glamours played 

8i 



Across her face, and through her bird-like mien, 

Soft fitful lightnings on a pallid cloud. 

And she awoke my love in spite of fear. 

Yet she was changed; I dreamed a touch of scorn 

In her caresses, and her smiles seemed forced, 

And when I turned to go and quickly turned, 

I saw the frightened look of glad rehef 

Fade in a sickly glance of unmeant love. 

So gradually my life was torn; she felt 

Her growth of power, and hardly cared to hide 

Her shame of me save that with cat-Hke stealth 

She strove to gall me in her deadly play. 

And sprinkled all her cruelty with kisses 

As one might strew in direful mockery 

Roses along the path of one who sees 

Not far the headsman's weapon coldly gleam. 

I cannot tear apart her witcheries; 

She stood upon my every path of life; 

She scoffed when my best friends hung on my 

words; 
She wove her mist of omnipresent scorn 
Around me, till I knew that all my words 
Brought her fierce eyes to burn upon my face. 
Or her chill laugh to sound and maim my strength. 
I fought her, stormed, and fled away from home, 
I tried entreaty, tried all means of love, 
I could not move her; yet she came and said 
She loved me with a love surpassing man's, 
And rather than be sundered from my side 

82 



Would perish miserably; yea so, indeed; 

If she were here, I should clutch her by the throat! 

You see I crave no pardon, ask no pity; 

But hear me to the end which darkens near. 

I felt myself bound in a servitude 

Worse than black hell's; my purposes were dead; 

My Hfe was all a blank, the world was gone; 

I cannot say how utter were the gloom 

And hideous solitude I dwelt within. 

She was not satisfied; she sang, she played, 

She danced upon my hving grave; she dared 

To boast of her well-earned supremacy. 

Even so her tyrannies enveloped me. 

And I walked fettered in my every act. 

The veriest slave the sun shone down upon. 

I bore it month by month, till on that day — 

Which is for me a space of livid flame — 

The horror of what then I had become, 

The ruin of what I had hoped to be, 

Arose before me and I spoke my grief. 

She only laughed her meaningless, clear laugh. 

— My vanquished manhood stirred within my arms, 

I fell upon her and I strangled her. 

And knew my bondage done when she lay dead. 

judges, do upon me what you will; 
You cannot take the rapture that I felt 
When her last breath was gone, and I was free; 
For death is silence; if I wake from that, 

1 wake in freedom, and my hfe flows forth 

83 



To ends that are mine own, and underneath 
My care grow as fair trees in fostering spring. 

AN INDIAN STORY 

The warrior came back from the weary march, 
Much had he suffered and seen; 

He stood all alone beneath the arch 
Of the oakwoods fair and green. 

He waited awhile beneath the tree 
Where had stood the girl most fair, 

Who had promised his laughing bride to be 
When the war had ended his care. 

A shudder crept through his sinewy form, 

He knew not the reason why, 
A gloom like the cloud of a gathering storm 

Seemed sweeping over the sky. 

He turned and across the darkening air, 

Like flashes of dusky light. 
Strange shapes seemed to flit all unaware 

That the sun shone on midheight. 

A bird made moan of most ghostly note 
From the thick leaves' sombre shade, 

Though the waves of sunlight ceased not to float 
Through the blossom-smihng glade. 

84 



The warrior quivered and felt a chill 

As though a blast from the dead 
Had sought the affrighted wind to fill 

With anguish sharp and dread. 

He thrust the grim feeling off from his soul, 

And looked to the red sun clear; 
He felt, as the sea from the shore may roll, 

The passing away of his fear. 

The darkness crept from across the sky. 
The lone bird ceased from its song, 

The fitful shapes seemed to flutter and die 
The soft-swayed winds along. 

Had he dreamed a frightful dream at noon. 

Had he died while yet alive. 
Had he heard the sound of the soundless tune 

Of the dead when they cease to strive ? 

He turned and found at the foot of a tree 

A young girl sitting alone; 
Her woe was a bitter thing to see. 

Her very soul made moan. 

He gazed with eyes of out-staring fear. 

He knew the young girl's face. 
He saw the cheeks of his true love clear. 

And her tears rolled on apace. 

85 



No word escaped from the frozen lip, 
But she saw and waved her hand; 

He reeled Hke a shattered storm-struck ship, 
He followed her strange command. 

Again a cloud swept over the air, 

And through it the shapes seemed to ghde; 
The lonesome bird sought no more to spare 

The flow of his sorrow's tide. 

He followed her steps as she slowly led 

To the village known so well; 
Never a word her shut mouth said. 

And never ceased the spell. 

When she saw the village rising near, 
She waited, he stood by her now. 

She held him in hands both cold and drear, 
She kissed him on Up and brow. 

Around her he strove his arms to close, 

He felt but the viewless wind. 
He saw but the day, and a wail arose 

From the village, far and thinned. 

Nearer the maiden-bearers came. 

Nearer and nearer the men. 
Pure as a rose that no one can blame. 

Death-pale he saw her again. 
86 



Alack! she had kissed him on lip and brow, 
He tottered and fell by the dead; 

They place him lifeless beside her now, 
And lay them in one strait bed. 

SOLACE 

Stand firm — these are but little things, 
A shadow which the temporal flings 
Around the soul that smiHng sits 
Beyond these trivial fever-fits. 

It is not worth a serious while 
To suffer sirens to beguile 
The soul out from its central peace 
And equipoise of safe release. 

We live our life — it is not well 

To fall beneath the wizard's spell, 

To dream that things which pass and fleet 

Are firm beneath our careful feet. 

We live our life — and we must bear 
The weight of life's most certain care. 
But in our hearts our true home is 
And basis of our destinies. 

We five our life — and outer things 
Are but a robe the temporal flings 
Around the soul that is serene 
Behind the many-woven screen. 

87 



SONNETS 



Height 

Through veils on veils of air and toward the Hght 

We press whatever hindrances annoy; 
The landscape stretches palely to the right, 

And leftwards the slow sun has rich employ; 
The soft stream murmurs through the wind-swept 
leaves 

The song that aids our unrelaxing march, 
Until the listening, lingering ear receives 

But shadowy echoes underneath the arch 
Of woods that darken here below the steep 

Last stair our eager feet have yet to tread; 
The grasses vanish and the sparse trees keep 

Chance harbourage where the barren rocks are 
spread; 
And now the sun increases in the sky. 
Calling vast clearness friend and glad ally. 

II 

Distance 

The distant lake Hes placid with the shine 

Subdued upon its smooth unheaving breast. 
And the mild mountains, subtly blue, recHne 

88 



Against the mighty morning's splendidest; 
The sinuous vapours play about their feet, 

The peaks emerge in mellow reddened gold, 
And onward to the sunrise speed and beat 

The wind's wings shepherding the clouds' soft fold; 
Slowly forth from the light-dissevered mist 

The village spires arise unto the sun, 
Till Heaven's own radiance has bent down and kissed 

The roof trees from the vanishing shadows won; 
Divinely sure. Nature's great soul and heart. 
Delight, sun-clothed, resumes his mastering part. 

Ill 

Life 

Yes, we have climbed together, and your sight, 

Strenuous and perceant, fearless, deep, and large. 
Has burned its way unto the sovereign Hght, 

Passing beyond each wider-stretching marge. 
Passionate-eager for the ultimate bUss 

Of light's self found recognizant in you. 
The wondrous voiceless song of thought's own kiss 

On lips fresh with its reborn morning dew, 
The intimate and central strength of truth 

Re-glorified in shine reverberant 
From hence. His undisturbed heart in sooth 

Brought back to Him thus suavely undulant; 
And I who walk beside you dimly know 
What your unswerving fiery eyebeams show. 

89 



IV 

Love 

Now, as my sight grows strong with yours in me, 

The large blaze breaks in myriad points of flame, 
And joys, long felt, stand forth in lucency 

That half forbids the sweet famihar name; 
Lo! your unshadowed smile sends swift afar 

Its centring life to burst in leaf and bloom, 
And every roof appears a luminous star. 

And everywhere the day constructs a golden doom; 
The bronzing smoke-wreaths tell of hope and peace 

Holding at heart the secret of all good. 
And filled with bHss the radiances increase. 

Leaping to do their service as they should; 
So guided our strong steps once more descend. 
Making this Light our Life's unfaltering end. 

ASSURANCE 

You have passed beyond the high. 
Steep enclosure of the sky, 
VeiHng with its dappled blue 
You, O loved one, from our view. 
Yet across whatever streams. 
Through what newer lands like dreams, 
You may rise and float and speed. 
Through what paths of loftier deed, 
90 



You will ever keep in view 
My hurt soul as I keep you. 
Whatso waters you may drink, 
On what hard oblivion's brink, 
You I know will keep your lip 
From the smallest farthest sip, 
(Oh, the spell to strike despair 
Into Hght divinely fair) 
Which can bring the fate to be 
That you should not remember me. 

DROWNED 

Cease your flowing, dark-hued sea. 

Him can you not bring again to me; 

Ship, that bore him on the way. 

Lie as deep as may be from the day; 

Better you had never been 

Than return as father of this sin. 

Better that no keel had pierced the bright 

Waters than those eyes sink from our sight; 

He was more than any wave. 

More than all the vessels brave. 

O that green-haired earth had spread 

Over the sea's unquiet bed! 

Seamanship and vessels fair, 

Flight to lands of other air. 

All things men earn from the deep. 

Ceaselessly must mourn and weep, 

91 



Wishing they had never risen 

From the Undone's cloud-wrapped prison; 

Then they had not brought him low, 

Far from all who love him so; 

Then he still would be the Hght 

Of all things that are most bright, 

Grasses, rivers, stars, and songs. 

Which the loth lip yet prolongs. 

Clinging to the loveliness 

Which he brought our hearts to bless. 



SONNETS 

I 

The Orient 

Let me not waken from the dream; the deep 
And endless realm of being bathes me round, 
And all its waves so sink into the sound 

Of voiceless music that I fall on sleep 

In the still golden vast, nor longer keep 
This fitful self once aching as a wound 
Not yet brought back into health's girding bound. 

But now released from all that makes souls weep. 

Seas, trees, the stars, the ways of men. 

The maddening maze wherein they toss and whirl, 
And what the winds of change about them hurl 

92 



Of blinding storms, are past; I rise again 

Into the One whose Hps no more uncurl, 
The silent light*s sole sightless denizen. 

II 

JUDEA 

Whiteness and Splendour past the bound of things, 
Beyond the utmost far Beyond, and Light 
For whom as darkness is all lesser sight, 

Being the Life-beat of all perishings. 

The Song wherewith all Music rings. 

The Strength that fills all circle-spreading Might, 
The Voice that sounds within stern-visaged Right, 

The Calm whereto all pulsing anguish clings. 

Forth from the worlds the winged prayers arise. 
Changed into flowers before your changeless eyes. 

Received into your realm divine, secluse. 
Heart of all hearts and blessed peace that Hes 
Golden around the years* condign abuse 
Transfigured in your Love, serene, diffuse. 

Ill 

The Occident 

I burst the troubled slumber; lo! I toil. 
And over me the mighty sunshine rolls 
In wave on wave of mastering controls, 

93 



Wherein the weary stress and wounding coil 
Grow into broken and rich odorous soil 

From which arise the morn-responding bowls 
Of flowers and hopes that are the very soul's. 
And radiant glow the obedient mirk and moil. 

So the White Splendour bends from height above, 

And the Soul stands at one with Life and All; 
So Love repHes unto the crowning Love, 
And wondrous is the shining joy thereof; 

The days fleet on, and to their beck and call 
Come Freedom's labours that God's self enthrall. 

OBSESSION 

Do you believe there are two worlds ? Men say 
That over the dull realm of Time and Sense 
Spreads a clear region of more potent Hfe, 
Inhabited by spirits strong for good 
Or ill, whose motions sway the pulsing tide 
Of this our being's sea as the white moon 
Draws to her feet the fawning, sinuous waves. 
In deeps of your own heart do you not feel 
Impulsions, hopes, anticipations sweet. 
Which come from an intense obscure of soul, 
Having their strength from a hid mystic source, 
Whose constant effort builds the vast complex 
Of things and souls, and Hke an artist sees 
Its imaged inner essence perfect wrought 

94 



Beneath its all-subduing might; I ask 

Where lies the verge, the sharp dividing Hne 

Betwixt the one indissoluble me, 

And that pervasive power which ceaseless acts. 

And yet through death and birth and mighty change 

Remains unchangeable, self-equal, strong. 

I ask how far the splendour-girted ones 

Who dwell in unseen depths of golden bliss, 

Or those most awful who in caves of sin 

Drag out sad periods of gloom and fear. 

Invest the orbs of our dissevered selves, 

And rule us past resistance of our utmost wills. 

These are strange questions, and no sure reply 

Comes from the voiceless truth; but I am worn 

With anguish of self-condemnation, seek 

A way out from the labyrinthine grief 

That holds me prisoner from the Uberal air 

And broader sunshine where men work or play. 

I am two selves; I am incarnate stress 

And struggle of twain potencies, I am 

The stage of bitter conflicts numberless. 

As a wild bird may swoop upon its prey. 

Or the demoniac whirlwind crush in grasp 

Of viewless air the object of its wrath. 

An influence, rushing Hke the angered seas, 

Diff"used and formless yet not all devoid 

Of centred point of personality. 

Pounces upon me with resistless strength. 

And thrusts myself out from myself and dwells, 

95 



An alien soul, within me, and holds reins 

Upon my thoughts and deeds. It helps me not 

That I make struggles fierce to dispossess 

The secret power. I see with vision clear 

In what excess of passion^s maddened whirl 

I sweep to gulfs of grief and hideous shame; 

I see with intellectual eye the nobler way 

Of self-control, and sufferance of the wrongs 

The petty envy of vague circumstance 

Inflicts, but with a grim stolidity 

The force I know not what or w^hence grasps me, 

And seems to smile a triumph horrible 

When at dread intervals its dusky form 

Looms into sight before the inner eye. 

What is it .? Can you tell, for you are wise, 

And have so long searched God's abysses deep 

That his hid will has bared itself for you. 

And you behold those principles eterne 

That pattern all that is, that was, or shall be. 

I cannot live and be the instrument 

Of random powers to tune me as they w^ill. 

And make such music as may please their ear, 

And I should find the mutterings of Hell 

Sweet concord matched w^ith their bewildering strains. 

I loathe myself when I am freed and know 

I am again the sovereign of myself. 

The sense that aliens have held revel in 

My house of soul fills me with rage and scorn; 

Is there no help .? Aid me, O God, I pray, 

96 



Or sink me down in caves of utter sleep 

Where dull oblivion like a leaden sea 

May clasp my soul in an unsounding grave, 

Unvisited of light, or breath, or dreams; 

Keep me from such besiegement, or if aught 

Shall sweep across my heart's unbounded sky, 

Be it the Hght of thy sweet love, or breath 

Of thy clear charity, that robes, Hke air, 

The vales and mountains, all that stirs and lives, 

And binds in friendship strict the distant stars. 

Things strange, contrarious, and sets free from rule 

Of baser feelings, envy, fear, or scorn. 

FROM UNDER THE BAN 



The brows throb with the pain and weariness 
Which fill the heart, and all the blood is slow; 
We care not much for anything, and know 

Not change in this continuing distress; 

Monotony and woe, nor more nor less; 
But the same road the equal sad hours go. 
And with the same no speed the gray streams flow. 

And never a wind has touch of a caress. 

Whither and to what end ? nay, urge not thus 
The unopening lips of Fate to grant reply; 
The leaden message will more dolorous 
Gloom the vague vale where unmiraculous 

97 



And pulseless twilight broods across the sky, 
Which shuts on us who breathe and may not die. 

II 

Yonder a glow of sudden light, a thrill 
Sweeps through the air, a sign of joy, 
And where the new-foamed waters have employ 

Beside the green base of the rock-hewn hill, 

A murmur sounds, more full of wakening will, 
And a young breeze with movements, soft and coy. 
Bends the low grass, and lightly dares to toy 

With slumbrous streams which the dull slopes down 
spill. 

So in the night a silver star shone forth 
And calmly sailed across the purple north, 

And to our hearts — we know not how — came 
back 
A very breath of spring, a hope of toil 

That should relead us to the shining track 
Where we had seen the haughty foe recoil. 

Ill 

Ay, now we do remember, for the day 

Was more perturbed than is its dismal wont, 
And we felt more how vain the attempt and hunt 

For labours that are one with life and play; 

The Httle child came near with laughter, gay 

98 



As one whose soul nor time nor fate could blunt, 
And whose deep-eyed delight would be to front 
The ragged savage edge of every fray. 

That laughter snapped the ice around our hearts. 
And we saw blooms that we supposed were dead. 
And the base sky of sombre heavy lead 

Burst wondrously, and, pierced with memoried darts 
Of an awakening sharp, we grew less cold. 
And saw how Victory glows before the bold. 

IRRESOLUTION 

So now — the morrow comes — the fatal morn 

Whose sun shall see failure, or haply find 

My high magnificence outrival him 

In his best splendour. All depends on act 

Quick fashioned to the instant's exigence. 

Now if clear thought and far, wide view of things 

And hard forgetfulness of narrow aims 

Shone but as lamps upon the cold, dark road 

Whereon my feet have been through weary hours 

Of sullen meditation and torn soul. 

Rapt various by strong winds of false or true. 

I long for this great sovereignty, firm seat 

Whence broad outpouring good in fruitful rains 

Attempered to the time's best need and use, 

Opportune proper nutriment at call 

Of thirsty blooms or long dry wastes of sand, 

99 



Might be my gift to man; this height of power, 

Almost mine own save that far nearer claims 

Assault my strength of will and bid me think 

Of him whose right ancestral I oppugn, — 

Weak infant never grown to manhood's thought 

And ever leaping fountain of much ill, — 

This hold of might to help all struggling good 

I dare not cast away, now offered me; 

And yet I know not, for these sicklied eyes, 

Grown dim in atmosphere of bold attempt. 

See things awry, not in such harmony 

As quells the turbulent upheave of self. 

And shows we are not sundered fragile parts, 

But rounding last completion of the whole. 

Yet that bright way is dark — cheap chill bought 

smiles. 
Mock reverence, hate made smooth with wiles per- 
force. 
Are lampless lights upon that royal path; 
Surely there are two illuminations, nay. 
One only, dominant with lustre pure, — 
Steadfast, calm soul who knows the flow of things, 
And in self-centred trust laughs at the foam 
And angry battling of innocuous waves. 
Pierces the overpowering glooms of death 
With sudden sempiternal flame, nor needs 
Transitory splendence, mutable glows, 
Shows and bright garbs of dew-long fitful earth, 
Content with deep bold faith and love of right. 

100 



Wherefore I choose; — hark! the shrill trumpet calls! 
Methinks the hurried confluence of thoughts, 
And sword-wise clash of hostile, bitter words, 
And sudden energy vouchsafed at need. 
May strike from the bare rock the novel flash 
Shall light the torch in farthest fane of mind 
Where Truth displays her secret, solemn scroll. 
Why care so much ? In multitudinous flux 
Of atoms small my slender orb will roll 
Whither chance winds or present streams 
Seek the far close of night or pure, clear fire. 



THE FOUR QUARTERS OF THE YEAR 

What shapes of Springtime fleet through thy soul ? 
Pale long grasses, wind that passes, 
Rains Hke a swift sweet dream. 
Fancy with stores in golden masses, 
Hopes in a sunny stream, 
Golden visions, 
Superb derisions 
Of failure to reach life's uttermost goal. 

What raptures of Summer in the deeps of thy heart ? 
Skies the bluest, vows the truest, 

Deep green gloom of forests rude, 
Seas whereon, O soul, thou viewest 

Fleets of joys, a white-winged brood, 

lOI 



Wine-hued aspirations, 
Passion's incarnations, 
Wherewith life's pulses still storm and start. 

What low-voiced blisses of Autumn are thine ? 
Languid fruition, fearsome transition 

Over to realms of snow. 
Subtile and secret premonition 
How fierce the winds shall blow, 
Mingled sensation 
Of flight and station. 
Glad fear of the things that may not yet shine. 

Has thy soul in Winter all peace attained ? 
Sunny pleasures, winsome treasures 

Brought by breath of the bold North Wind, 
Fireside songs in glorious measures. 
Tales that bring the fervour of Ind, 
Burning coldness. 
Iron boldness. 
Strength of the heart not hitherto gained. 

Joy reigns throughout the Spirit's year, 
Lights there are fixed although they veer; 

Hope and the Ideal 

There are the Real, 
Severless friends in that wondrous sphere. 



102 



A FALSE TRIUMPH 

So the fight is over and ended, 
The sky shows placid and clear, 

Where the smoke with the dust was blended. 
And the sun could not appear. 

Not a sound of insolent glory, 

Not a murmur of woe and defeat, 

The whole is a finished story, 
The day is silent and sweet. 

And the triumph is weak and brittle, 

And its heart is chill and cold, 
And its strength is vapid and little. 

And its hour will soon be told. 

Triumph that lasts forever 

Comes only with simple truth 
That not an assault can dissever 

From its calm and ageless youth. 

Such defeat holds firm in its anguish 
More hfe than the conquerers know. 

Before whom so much must languish. 
So much is crushed and laid low. 

103 



Stand there with your countenance pallid, 
With your lips from their colour that flew, 

Till the blood in your heart has ralHed, 
And the glow shines forth in the blue; 

For the just shall make you master, 

So much have you surely won, 
And good from this sore disaster 

Shall resume the course it must run. 

Then the hour shall call you and use you, 
And the truth shall fill you with might. 

Nor victory dare to refuse you 
The bringing forth of the right ! 



REBOUND 

What do you seek, what do you see. 
Under the lonely mountain tree ? 
Now at last do you love me ? 

The days are dead, the hours are fled 
In which the sweet sad words were said; 
Know you whither you are led ? 

I loved you well, I loved you true. 
You stood the sun in all I knew; 
Have the days changed so for you ? 
104 



Scorn has its own deep mysteries 
Which only one who all things sees 
Knows to bear hke blossoming trees. 

Now that you love, I cannot love, 
I see nought cast from realms above 
Worthy to take note thereof. 

I cannot solve the riddle dark. 
Or sail again in the swift bark 
Girt by music of the lark. 

Nay, who shall break the sombre spell. 
Or drink the waters of the well 
Flowing in the dim past's dell ^ 

The days are dark, and overhead 
The sky is dull and pale as lead; 
Here nought further may be said. 

INCERTITUDE 

Your pallid eyes are wet with tears, 

Are wet with tears. 
Your sad stained cheeks are pale with fears, 

Are pale with fears. 
But the Past will not return. 

Mayhap you yet again will stand. 
Again will stand 
105 



Upon a new Spring's magic strand, 
Spring's magic strand, 
When the skies with sunrise burn. 



SING, O BIRD! 

Sing, O bird, and pour your heart 
Into your unconscious art; 
Pour your strains upon the air, 
Rising fair and yet more fair; 
What you say I know full well. 
As I lean unto the spell 
Of your raptures ringing loud 
Through your every accent proud. 
Ah! you utter truth divine, 
Flowing from the inmost shrine; 
You and Love are closely bound 
In a friendship sweet and sound, 
As a rose's petals pure 
Coiled up in a bud demure. 
Why should words of anguished men 
Bear me far from you again ? 
What a broken thing is speech! 
Song alone can deeply teach. 
Let me with you flutter back. 
And retrace the vagrant track 
Which I followed, when I left 
Youth's glad trust, and came bereft 
Unto fields where work and moil 
io6 



Hold me, and the thankless spoil 
All men labour for and spin 
Is but folly which they win. 
Listening to you on the spray, 
I behold again the day 
Which is light whereby we see 
All we ever hope to be. 
You and nature yet are one, 
You are gladdened with the sun, 
You and life are not at war, 
Happiness' sweet servitor! 
Let me rest in your clear joy. 
Let me feel your secret coy. 
Live at one with all bright things. 
Sing as when your pleasure sings. 
Freed from severance into me. 
Held in tenderest fealty 
To the dream of bliss that fills 
Your dear voice's golden rills. 
All myself absolved from wrong, 
Lost in your ethereal song! 

SONNET 

She sat beside me at the Monday Club, 

But my thoughts were afar and otherwhere; 
Her face was pale and thin, but not less fair 
Than when I saw it last; her Alpine cub, 
Whose eyes, a gold-brown wheel with velvet hub, 

107 



Were still on watch, crouched low beside her chair, 
And oft would make her of himself aware. 
Or give her fallen hand a stealthy rub. 

For her dear sake we had permitted him, 

But I dreamed of one vanished glittering day, 
When we three wandered with our changing 
moods 
Beneath the trees, and all my heart was dim 
With joy, from which the sun bears me away 
Relentless, roods on ever lengthening roods. 

LINES 



It is joy to be, whatever the season; 
Who seeks to find the how or the reason ? 
There is always news from the engirding sphere 
Where the gods Uke stars in the sky appear. 

II 

Who longs for what he may not do, 
And lives vain hours he still must rue. 

Pity ye him in conflict snared; 
But if he learn the strife to love. 
And prune himself for flight above, 

God has beheld his woe, and spared. 
io8 



DIVIDED 

When I see him coming afar, 
I shudder with nervous dread. 

He seems to have power to mar 
The peace of the hfe I have led. 

Yet his voice has a noble ring 
That thrills my uttermost brain, 

And his thoughts seem ever to sing 
Some wondrous and heavenly strain. 

But when his young rival appears. 
My heart leaps up with my joy. 

And my eyes suffuse with tears 
For love of the beautiful boy. 

Then I weary of him in a while. 
And his graces are stale and sweet, 

And I scarcely repress a smile 
As he rises to his feet. 

Two loves are tearing apart 
My being that falters and falls, 

A love for a glorious heart, 
A love for a beauty that palls. 
109 



I know not how it will end, 

I see no outlet or way 
From the night wherein I wend 

To the light of happy day. 

INFELIX 

All the winds have gone to rest, 
All the night is unopprest, 

Everything is calm and still; 
But my heart, my heart, with passion is torn, 
And in it is dark to which comes not morn. 
And I weep and I keep 
Mine eyelids from sleep. 
And I cannot be calm and still. 

Lo! the happy sunrise glows 
In a burst of gold and rose, 

And the day is glad and free; 
But into my soul no radiance pours, 
And my Hfe leaps forth with straining oars, 
And gUdes with the tides 
Where the sea-roar abides 
And I cannot be glad and free. 

SONNET 

What do I dream within those deepened eyes 
Where you strive hard to hide the mystic story 

IIO 



I felt when Lifers spring saw clear gold arise 
The prescient sun of Love's impetuous glory, 
And through youth's sky with cloud inheritance 

hoary 
Flashed the new glow that made a young new soul ? 
As from a vexed and sea-girt promontory 
The paUid watcher marks across the roll 
Of waves of multitudinous molten fire 

The rapid growing sail, and tastes the kiss 

On trembHng lips, I note within your heart, 
Through eyes you cannot darken, my desire, 
My utter hope, my waiting certain bliss, 

My hfe forever made of yours a part. 

THE SEVENTH DAY 

The church-bells are ringing without, 

The people cheerfully go 
To manifold places of peace 

And worship God here below. 

Outside the blue sky is clear, 
The tall trees wave in the sun; 

Sweet calm descends on the town. 
The cares of the week are done. 

But, my heart, within thee upheaves 
The tempestuous conflict with ill; 

I fall to the deep abyss. 

And tremble with weakness of will. 
Ill 



A WISH 

Where the silver lake's expansion 
Flashes in the summer sunshine, 
I would be and hear the waters 
Plashing gently, softly, shoreward. 

Here the weariness of labour, 
Here the woe of those who murmur, 
Crushed by fates untoward and angry, 
Darkens all the Time's precedure. 

I would rest, and far from anguish 
Hear the joyous sounds of summer. 
Hearken to the songs that flutter 
Through my soul's light-mastered reaches. 

Happy those who in the aforetime 
Dwelt where skies were yet unclouded. 
Where the Future's hollow rumours 
Broke not Life's swift fleeting banquet. 

LIGHT AS AIR 

The words fall from my hps in spite of me, 

I know not why it is. 
And so my friends still shun the sight of me 

Hence all my miseries. 

112 



I ever find a fault or flaw In him 

Who labours by my side, 
Some deviation from the law in him 

Who is with me alHed. 

I never mean to see the worst in men, 
But I was born with eyes 

That ever catch and see at first in men 
What wakens my surprise. 

And I am led perforce to utter then 
The dark things I have known, 

And softly say and dimly mutter then 
Faults felt by me alone. 



Sometimes dear friends are sundered wide apart 

By stories I have told, 
Whereat I am dismayed and ghde apart, 

In sorrow duskly stoled. 

I stand alone, for no one cares for me. 

Me false as winds that spin, 
I cry for love, but what soul dares for me 

Rescue from my vain sin .? 



1 13 



NIGHT AND SEA 

Alone — alone — 
And night comes down on the sea. 

What has Hfe given me for prize, 

Joy of my hands, delight of mine eyes ? 

Vainly I ask and vainly surmise. 
Now that night comes down on the sea. 

Alone — alone — 

And night comes down on the sea. 
Will it be better when all is said, 
My dreary winter utterly sped. 
The futile grievous salt tears shed. 

And the night comes down on the sea ? 

Alone — alone — 
And night comes down on the sea. 

I care not much for ill or well, 

I seek no tale to hear or tell. 

Dark and Hght hold the self-same spell; 
O night, come down on the sea! 

UNION 

All things are good, the sky is fair. 
Fresh blows the rain-cleared morning air. 
The grasses laugh, the locusts cry. 
With inner joy the tall trees sigh. 
114 



The clouds sail fleetly down the blue, 
The yellow cornfield girds the view. 
The rivulet gleams with early sun, 
All hfe seems bright as though begun. 

Away with care, away with fear, 

These tumults have no places here; 

In this green world where all things smile 

Who would with these his soul defile ? 

O take the hour and omen sweet, 
Awhile from work and search retreat. 
Let life upfill you to the brim, 
And make you part of nature's hymn. 

Float down the stream whereon all things 
Seek the same goal whose far Hght flings 
A softened radiance like a smile 
On their vague strivings all the while. 

Forget the rocks, forget the banks. 
Forget the current's wayward pranks; 
Beyond these shines the infinite sea. 
Immersed in which all souls would be. 

The windy sea-scents penetrate 
This shell of sense and ope the gate 
Into the universal life 
That rounds with calm our finite strife. 

115 



At intervals we know that one 
Are all things underneath the sun, 
That struggling soul and peaceful flower 
Are emanations from one power. 

We feel our brotherhood with all 
The leaves that laugh, the birds that call. 
The clouds that sail, the winds that blow, 
The tasselled corn row after row. 

O take the hour and omen sweet, 
Awhile from work and search retreat; 
O take the hour, one moment be 
The whole that we call Destiny! 

COURAGE 

What dost thou fear ? 

I see nought in all Life's sphere 

To make me tremble; 

Thou canst not die 

Though all the gods their legioned tribes assemble 

In rnartial panoply across the sky. 

And hurl fierce darts against thy breast 

Invulnerably at rest. 

Art thou not master over death. 

And laughst to scorn the bitterest word he saith ? 

Nay, God cannot unmake thee 

At risk of his own soul, 

ii6 



Nor with his utmost hatred break thee, 

Lest the engirding whole, 

Which is his being, 

Vanish from thought or seeing. 

I fear not man nor God; 

I choose the right; 

The Httle pedagogue with switch or rod. 

Who governs Hell or Heaven, 

His angels or his demons seven, 

I have not lot nor share in; 

I do mine own desire; 

The brief small years of earth to toil or dare in 

I shrivel up like flax in my bold action's fire. 

Talk not to me of fear; 

I spurn the world, 

And mysteries eternity enfolds; 

Within the expanse of my unceasing Now and Here 

I walk the elysian fields with morning dew impearled, 

I seize the secrets God's deep bosom holds, 

And in my sure reHance 

Send down the Universe the cry of my defiance. 

SPHERE-MUSIC 

Hark! hast thou ears for tones that fall from far 
Through spaces of the blue round atmosphere. 
Too lustrous-pure to burst the bond and bar 
Of heaviness that builds its mansions drear 
117 



Around dull minds upon whose eyeballs blear 
Falls no lit vision, whom no wonder-sound 
Can waken ? — hark! most sweet and low and clear 
They fill the air, till the whole heart is bound 
In ecstasy too deep for words or song. 

Transfiguring the body's shell to soul 

With corresponding rapture, and all Time 
Sunders its vaporous veil of ancient wrong, 

While like the opening of a poet's scroll 

The splendour grows of Life complete, sublime ! 

WITH A BOOK 

In sooth, the touch of your fingers 

Thrills me with subtlest bliss. 
The soul of whose memories Hngers 

From that moment unto this. 
When I look again into your eyes 
Where my wondrous sun and stars arise. 

I bring you this little book, 

All made up of joy Hke ours. 
Into whose uttermost nook 

Pierces the odour of flowers 
That grow in divine Love's secretest place. 
And see all day his unveiled face. 

Lift up your eyes and gaze. 

My breath is faint at my Hps, 
I die in those glances' maze 
Ii8 



As a star in splendid eclipse 
On the waiting breast of the mighty sun 
When the brilliant term of its years is run. 

COMMONPLACE 

Three little kisses in the red corn, 
Three steps from the open door, 

And a silver star that shone in the sky 
Shines in its place no more. 

Three Httle sighs of odorous breath 

From beating of the heart, 
And a soul that had all souls by its side 

Stands from all souls apart. 

What has the wind to say in her ear, 

Out on the barren wold ? 
And what is the voice of the church bell far 

Sounding across the cold .? 

Three little steps and under the hedge. 

Icy and leafless, bare, 
A shadow totters, dumbly falls, 

And moveless slumbers there. 

THE IDEAL 

O poor, tired, foot-sore treader of life's ways, 

Beyond are lands of lovely rest, 
Unvexed by noise fulfilling these sad days. 

Fair as the storied west. 
119 



Not on the wings of white-sailed sharp-keeled ships 

Shall man attain that splendid land; 
Under strange suns unknowing dire eclipse 

Paths thitherward expand. 

Deep in the soul those buried regions lie, 
Beautiful with dreams dead poets saw, 

Wondrous with thoughts hovering one minute nigh 
Some dreamer on God's law. 

O sunset island of the Hesperides, 

O golden age made ours at will. 
Fierce extreme reach of divine ecstasies. 

Glad summit of God's hill! 

O patient toiler, dawn makes sweet the air, 
And fair-faced morning shines at length 

For thee wrapt deep in blooms those far fields bear, 
Song-soothed through all thy strength. 

VIGIL 

Who never doubts but still doth strive. 
Though thunder rolls and lightnings rive. 

Shall have sweet peace anon; 
But neither backward nor to side 
May forward eyes firm-fixed and wide 

Swerve lest their hope be gone. 
120 



For ceaseless watch the dim star asks, 
And leaves brief time to other tasks. 

But sets on eyes infirm; 
Nor to the hours of vigil cold, 
And hands laborious and bold, 

Places the wished-for term. 

Strong love for that strange watch will grow 
Within thy heart as from pale snow 

Of summit bloom of flame; 
That novel growth will fill the air 
Wherein thy meditations fare 

With light from Heaven that came. 

Then wilt thou watch with strenuous heart, 
Then wilt thou know the hidden part 

Thy soul in nature plays; 
And peace and joy and splendid dreams, 
And of the Future wondrous gleams. 

Will fill thy Hfe's lit ways. 

REMORSE 

I 

O the wind and the sea and the sky, 

O the darkness, the river, the snow, 

O the cry that arose and fell, 

O the star that shone, and flickered and passed! 

121 



II 

I gaze and shudder and hearken again; 
The wind through the rattHng trees, 
The wash of the waters against the shore, 
The Hght on the ship seen through the snow. 

Ill 

O the river and the gaping sea, 
The fleet dark waters pouring amain 
Into that grim and gloomy and vast 
Abyss whose secrets no man may know! 

IV 

What has been done on the shivering verge ? 
O the sea whose dull moan is a mock, 
And the wind that impotent wails. 
And the night with never a word! 



LULLABY 

Sleep, baby, sleep! smile in your sleep! 
Back to the splendour realms 
Whence, borne by golden helms. 
On seas the sun overwhelms. 

Into life's night your boat would creep! 
122 



Sleep, baby, sleep! smile in your sleep! 

For joy of parting is great, 

Return makes the heart elate, 

Sameness bids bliss to abate. 
Sleep, baby, sleep! smile in your sleep! 

EN AVANT 

Stay not too long in curious thought. 

Plunge into act and know 
That fate with lesser doubt is fraught 

Than your first trepidations show. 
Stay not too near the friendly shore. 

Trust all upon the instant's throw. 
Boldly strike out, and more and more 

The waves will calm, the mild winds blow. 
Lo! yonder is the isle in sight 

Whither your better hopes would go. 
And farther, rising from the night, 

New peaks within the new sun's glow! 

SONNET 

In what far land of bHss have you been straying. 
What land of low-voiced streams and days all 

golden. 
Faint, heavy-leaved nooks by none beholden 
Save eyes across whose space the fair god playing. 
The god of song and fancy's year-long Maying, 

123 



With his weird witcheries has given them olden 
And rarest power on sights thrice deep enfolden 
In his sweet gloom, in what far realm displaying 
Faery's hid charms, and unvoiced subtle splendour. 
The soul^s deep heart made visible, the glory 
Of some abode in Heaven's seven-folded mys- 
tery, 
In what domain of dream, for slow and tender 
Your swift sad smiles half tell the rapturous story, 
And in your eyes I read the wondrous history. 

EPILOGUE 

What is it after all ? 

The play is soon played out. 
The tale is quickly told; 
Youth makes a sudden fall, 
Joy knows a dismal rout, 
And the end is knoUed. 

One stay alone I know, 
One virtue to profess. 

One comfort to hold fast: 
Patience what winds may blow, 
Courage what woes oppress, 
And sleep at last. 



124 



A PARTING 

The words that day you spake, 
When last for my sad sake 

We met, are far from wrong; 
Faith is of slender root, 
Its rapid growing shoot 

Hath Hfe not over long. 

You could not feel again 
What both of us felt then, 

The passion and the love; 
From you as far from me 
Flown is that ecstasy. 

That earth all heaven above. 

It is not well to strive, 

For all things fleet and drive 

Adown the self-same stream. 
Hold fast the golden hour. 
But clasp no ruined flower 

When faded is the dream. 

Yea, vain are all regrets. 
For life foregoes, forgets. 

An end, an end, to all; 
Be free to take and leave. 
What time may give, receive. 

But unto nought be thrall. 
125 



For faith to faithlessness 
Is saddest of distress, 

Be truth's while truth remains; 
But pass nor enter more 
The bitter threatening door 

Where Falsehood cowled complains. 

You know it is but well 
That ended is the spell; 

Seek other hopes and new, 
Cast no pale glances back 
Upon the trodden track, 

Nor what hath chanced rue. 



ADMONITION 

Courage, friend, the way is open. 
Tread it without taint of fear, 

Farther on the green fields glitter, 
Words are whispered of good cheer. 

All the winds are full of voices, 
Every breeze invites and calls. 

Every mountain nods benignly. 
Every good begins and thralls. 

Only do not pause and falter. 
Onward though the way be cold, 

Brave hearts cannot be defeated. 
All things come unto the bold. 

126 



SOLITUDE 

Forth from the many noises let me pass, 

Under these trees I find my younger soul again, 
I hear the soft faint whisper of the grass. 

And sweeter is it than the words of men; 
I must forego the weariness of strife, 

The saddening search for things of Httle worth. 
The bitter toils that break the heart of life. 

And clog the sources of the truer mirth. 
Let me be freed from all those storms awhile. 

Be glad to watch the light play on the brook, 
Bathe myself in the sky's unvarying smile. 

And read again the songs in nature's book; 
So shall the day's swift changes bring to me 
The olden joys, the lost serenity. 

AT THE THEATRE 

She sat in her box and watched the play, 

And the miracle of her smile 
Was more than the power of verse to say, 

Or the skill of a master's style. 

She watched the woes of the heroine there, 

The woes of the artist life. 
The father enraged at his daughter fair. 

The child with the home at strife. 
127 



The large face spoke of an inner peace, 

And a wisdom that clearly knew 
How the pictured soul might gain release 

From the winds that round it blew. 

The words fell softly from her lips, 

And over her equable breath 
Came like the placid movement of ships 

That dreamed not of nearing death; 

But in her heart were passion and fear, 
Though her eyes made never a sign. 

And her accents dulcet and suavely clear 
Were calmer far than mine. 

Could she forget that the strength was at work 

To bring the secret to light 
And thrust her amid the horror and mirk 

Of crime and its savage bhght ? 

And him for whom she had offered up all. 

Body and soul and truth, — 
Would the law's delay at last appal, 

And show as he was in sooth ? 

She feels that she stands on the perilous brink. 
But her words are feathered with wit. 

And seeing her eyes no man may think 
That the furies within her sit. 
128 



OVER THE LAKE 

Soft bends the dim sky round the earth, 
Dappled with fleecy, moving clouds; 

There where the golden sun has birth, 
A mist the purple waves enshrouds. 

Far off a single white sail speeds 
Into the morning's quivering glow. 

Brightening, as farther it recedes. 

With lights that from the sunrise flow. 

My thought, my hope, too spreads its wings, 
Seeing the billowing splendours break. 

And rises where the whole air rings 

With songs that in me shine and wake. 



ON THE HEIGHTS 

Bluer the sky and more serene. 

Perfumed the air. 
Thin shadows touch the valley green. 

Speed here and there. 

The land laughs with the wind and sun. 

The mountains stand 
Veiled in the mist by distance spun 

On either hand. 

129 



The silence weaves its tender spell. 

Sweeter than song, 
Around, high up, the soft clouds dwell. 

And moveless throng. 

Thought's weary stress dissolves in peace. 

Care fleets on care. 
Life celebrates a new release, — 

The dream is fair. 



ECHO 

Away upon sweet Music's river. 

Far, far away. 
Bright, led by dreams, my heart forever 

Floats and is glad to stray. 
When my soul is sad and weary. 

And the hours complain. 
There all my longings, dark and dreary, 

Rise from their care and pain. 

Friend's eyes look joyfully upon me. 

Their words I hear. 
Pleasure again has sought and won me. 

Lights in my sky appear. 
Freed from the chains of fleeting sorrow. 

On the waves of song. 
Forward I speed unto a morrow 

Pure of the shadow of wrong. 
130 



Oft, happy, thus I pass and Hsten 

Unto clear strains, 
Which make the eyes unused to glisten 

Fill up with short-lived rains; 
And the seasons shall not bring me 

Anything more dear 
Than Music with the power to sing me 

Into its nobler cheer. 



THE BELL 

Ages on ages in the seething earth 

You lay unformed and waiting to be born; 
Great stars were pouring down such light in mirth 

As should the first strong growth of worlds adorn; 
The bubbling masses cooled and flamed amain, 

The play of forces wrought a wondrous change, 
The hissing waters fled the vague vast plain 

Watched of some new and mighty mountain range; 
Thick grasses flowed unto the firm-based rock, 

The race of men trod through the smihng space. 
The peaceful murmur rose of herd and flock. 

The light grew brilHant in the earth's fair face; 
Then they made you, who answered with a sound 
That echoed all the grand uprise and round. 



131 



ART FOR ART'S SAKE 



It cannot be the sun; out of the sea 
A sombre glory rises, and the air 
Thrills as with longing; all the landscape fair 

Shows weird beneath the outpouring vast and free 

Of that mist-clothed effulgence; nor do we 
Know whither we are led, save that 'tis where 
The dweUings cease of gentle joy and care 

And love for what has not yet come to be. 

Under the dream-light ever; lo! vague shapes 
Tread the smooth lawns and fade monotonous, 

And, sailing past far-seen and perilous capes. 
Tall ships go forth on quests that have for us 

The fascination and the wondrous pain 

That they those outland shores may never gain. 

II 

Farther into the labyrinth; more and more 

The dread Hght brazens, and the songs awake 
Of a large woe that sings for pleasure's sake; 
Dark ghosts of passions, whose fierce anguish tore 
The mad souls of the elder time and bore 

Their frenzies toward the dull-starred stream and 
lake 



Where Destiny's multiformed pale blossoms break, 
Resume the robes their baffled fantasies wore. 

Lo! there beneath the white-flowered almond tree 
Clear naked dreams in half rejoicing dance, 
And, yonder, many a golden, glittering lance. 

Halting in woods a-nigh the sobbing sea; 

But through the bitter splendour of the trance, 

The moan of death that must forever be. 

Ill 

Nay, let me break the languor; from the glooms 
Of lust and sin, the strains of palsied fear. 
The cries for things that have no lodgment here 

Nor in the life that may be, from the tombs 

Self-made, and hopes far worse than any dooms. 
Let me escape, the prison-house so drear 
With the vexed shining and the flaunting veer 

Of flames in which the pageant dims and looms. 

The enchantment wavers and a wind of fate 
Sweeps the wild whirl into the deep abyss; 
The clear fields laugh again and small waves kiss 

The patient shores; the harvests glow and wait; 

The slender smoke-wreaths curl and dissipate 
From simple roofs and settled home-bred bhss. 



U3 



ON THE SEA 

Strange is it, the winds and seas take your part; 

How dared I pass from your dear eyes ? 

For the stars shine not upon the night, 

And the moon is begirt with thickest cloud, 

And the eye of the sun glares fierce in the East 

When morning bares the earth to his wrath. 

The voice of the winds is in mine ears. 

And the sound of the waves is heard in scorn, 

And the storm sits throned in the mid-most sky; 

How art thou, far one, a natural power 

That thy scorn pursues me over the main, 

And thy sister clouds jeer in thick rain 

The losel who dared to leave thy side ? 

No more, no more; O winds and storms. 

Drive me apace the distance across 

That holds me from her; yea, at her feet 

I will bow, and lay down all pride of life 

To take from her hands what she will give 

Of being and hope and joy and breath. 

INSIGHT 

I heard a voice from the fast darkening skies 
Shiver across my hearing the great woe 
Of a grim message, that fell sad and slow: 

"Let not another lingering prayer arise 

134 



From lip or soul; uplift no more your eyes 

Unto the Height where once there seemed to glow 
A Sovereign Mind whom all the spheres could 
know, 

Since Changeless Law forbids the vain surmise." 

Yet from my heart the eager protest comes: 
"Nay, Sense and Law are not the whole of Hfe, 
I see the realm beyond them, high and clear; 
I know firm Faith's convincing martyrdoms, 

I know the Peace which rounds this passing strife, 
I know the Love which rids the world of fear.'* 



LOST 

Hast thou seen the wraith of the garden, 

With face so palHd and chill. 
And eyes that dare not ask pardon 

For the deeds of a perverse will ? 

At night when I lie in slumber 

It paces the garden space, 
And my dark-skied dreams without number 

Are the thoughts that gloom in its face. 

From the deeps of eternal night-time 

It sped to Hfe's wide plain. 
And when the sun brings the bright-time 

It finds a seat in my brain. 
135 



THE SIREN 

O lady fair of the subtle ways, 

And voice tremblingly tender, 
Delicate with length of languid days, 
O star of serene splendour, 

Surely your thoughts are soft as silk, 
Surely each dream that near you stays 
Is whiter than the foamy milk. 

Have you a heart that knoweth scorn ? 

A hope less sweet than roses ? 
In the pale moonlight you were born. 
When bitter fear reposes. 

In a clear vale your minutes sped. 
Whence banished every sound forlorn 

Left space for peace and joyance wed. 

Your footsteps Hke a pure stream pass. 

Smooth wavelet upon wavelet, 
Your voice's murmurs clear as glass 
Show pity your mere slavelet, 

Your tears Hke rain from summer skies 
That fall to soothe the thirsting grass 
Are pursuivants to gentle sighs. 

The roses of your cheeks grow pale. 

Your pansy eyes with weeping 
Suffuse as on the winds a tale 
136 



Its dolorous moan is keeping, 

Your slender body shakes with pain 
When you must hear how nought avail 
Some lovers' bitter strife and strain. 

Ah, you are made for stilly nooks 

In Hfe's serene seclusion, 
Whose windless calm but rarely brooks 
The sovereign sun's intrusion. 

Whose silver-stepping minutes frame 
A paradise of song and books 

Untouched by aught of woe or blame. 

Your modest-lidded eyes are stars 

That lead to lands where passion 
Subdues its fire, and raises bars 

Gainst hopes life's strength would fashion; 
O lady chaste, O fairy queen. 
Like drowning sailors clutching spars 
We cling unto your face and mien. 

What would you have ? We are your slaves, 

Our inmost hearts adore you; 
It is your voice, your look that saves 
The souls that bow before you; 

What would you have ? Your smile or frown 
Fills us with Hfe or in deep graves 

Sinks our impetuous longings down. 

^3>1 



Have you strange words more keen than swords ? 

Have you looks cold as winter ? 
Have you wild songs whose flow accords 
With Circe's Hps, imprinter 

Of the foul stain on mortal Hmbs 
Which swells the roll of brutish hordes 
To ease her ever-changing whims ? 

I cannot fathom your weird spells 

Nor wondrous soul's swift changes, 
I gaze with fear upon the dells 

Where your wild bird-thought ranges, 

Lest you feed on sweet, poisonous flowers 
And drink the waters of strange wells 
Within dim shadow-peopled bowers. 

I see you tread the downward path 

To lands of chillest mystery, 
Where Hate within the realms of Wrath 
Sits King of the consistory 

Of bitter Scorns and grievous Pains, 
And reaps the dolorous aftermath 

Of Hopes all dead and soaked with rains. 

Your smiles are cold as northern ice, 

Your eyes are hard and cruel. 
You are adept in all device *;C 

To heap enkindhng fuel 

138 



On smouldering ashes of dull fires 
Whose sinking past all hope and price 

Brings rest from woe of fierce desires. 

Yea, you can weep at some old song 

Of thwarted lovers' anguish, 
And the sweet luxury prolong 
Wherein you love to languish 

Of grief at fabled sorrowing hearts, 
But you can do most bitter wrong. 

And smile at pangs your skill imparts. 

O siren, direr, cruder far 

Than those of story olden, 
O bitter-boding flaming star, 
O splendour ominous, golden. 

Why will you haunt our shuddering skies, 
Why will you burst the bond and bar 

That shields us from your mighty eyes ? 

Have you no pity on the souls 

Who struggle in the prison 
Your smiles have built, and round which rolls 
The moan of woe arisen 

From hearts of men in the dead years, 
From hearts across whose winter tolls 
The passing bell of faUing tears ? 

O all ye in the ages past 

Who have borne the heavy burden 
139 



Of bitter love chill smiles could blast, 
Who bore for love's sweet guerdon 
Scorn's biting cold and storm of hate, 
I call upon you thus at last 

This poisonous spell to dissipate. 

O legions of the happy dead, 

O dv^ellers in the spirit, 
O you unto the joyance vs^ed 
Which v^e, v^ho flutter near it. 

And then are thrust back to the abyss. 
Hunger for though all hope be fled. 
Help us in war on woe Hke this. 

O all true lovers hear this cry 
Out of my depth of sorrow, 
Be unto my sad need anigh. 
And fill my changing morrow 

With your consolements sounding soft 
Above the place wherein I lie, 

And bear my soul to you aloft. 

Bring all true hearts unto that place 

Which is your golden dwelling. 
And through the clear miraculous space. 
All bitter thoughts expelHng, 

Floats that high song of blessedness 
Which shines in true love's eyes and face 
And moulds in tone love's each caress. 
140 



Unto that garden bring not near 
Her who has much to answer, 
But hold her far until her fear 
Have power to disentrance her, 
And from her solitude arise 
Her anguished heart's deep voices clear 
In longings for love's paradise. 

When she hath purged her of her sin, 

And found her deep-self wearied 
Of her perfections, bring her in 
From her hours dull and drearied. 
And once again let her soul know 
How fleets the time which those hearts win 
Who never anguish others so. 

There in that realm of light and blooms 

Shall be the unbroken pleasure 
Which is true love's; all bitter dooms 
Passed through their due and measure. 
She too redeemed and by the star 
Whose tenderness allures, illumes. 

Held with great strength from pain afar. 



141 



SONGS 



Upon the sea of your eyes, 

Like ships upon the sea, 
I watch your swift thoughts rise 

With a passion of rarest glee. 

The moon is lord of the sea. 

Its waves are slaves to that power; 

Oh, would I forever might be 

Your soul-sea's moon from this hour! 

II 

Although your eye most heavily lidded is, 

You cannot hide 
The secret of Love's sweet cupidities, 

I know my bride. 

Although your low words are mysterious, 

I catch their sense; 
No more my brow shall be most serious. 

My joys commence. 

Although the tremulous spring belated be. 

Warm days will come; 
Not long the singing birds unmated be. 

Nor cold benumb. 
142 



The goal is near for which we striven have, 

O love, O sweet, 
I know that you my fear forgiven have, 

And sad defeat. 

Behold the earth with flowers engirded is. 

The time is here; 
And now my love most subtly worded is, 

Morn's lights appear. 

Ill 

Rose-bud, rose-bud, bloom apace, 

Linger not so long; 
Singer, singer, shed the grace 

Of your silver song. 

April, April, pass in rain. 

Leave the year to May; 
Sorrow, sorrow, burst your chain, 

Youth should still be gay. 

Wave, O fleet wave, fall in glee 

On your lover-shore; 
Moon, O pale moon, touch the sea 

With your heart's white core. 

Wind, O swift wind, seek your nest 

In the lofty pine; 
Bee, O wild bee, you are blest 

Where your blossoms shine! 

143 



Love, O glad Love, what v^ould you 

Have your servant say ? 
Rise, O sun, across the dew. 

Bring the golden day! 

ASYMPTOTE 

Heart of my life, shalt thou ever be far from me. 

Parted by all the body's space, 
O that the form that fashions the bar from thee 

Love or some god might wholly displace. 

As the swift days and the nights pass over thee. 
Nearer thy heart my bowed heart climbs, 

Closelier now do mine eyes discover thee. 

Surer with thine my deep thought rhymes. 

O that some fate might shatter the chains of us. 
Setting our souls more free than the air. 

Changing to joys the bitterest pains of us. 
Making us one past severance of care! 

UNEXPLAINED 

I loved her well, I loved her true. 
Her smile was my life's purest star, 

She ruled in every thought I knew, 
She led my soul from earth afar. 
144 



Her touch upon my hand was fire, 
Her eyes were all my sun and moon, 

And at her word my fierce desire 
Fell into form and numbered tune. 

I know not how, but so it came. 

That our souls sundered, swept apart, 

I sought but found not whose the blame, 
Nor what divided heart from heart. 

I only know, one day it fell, 

She spoke some words quite faint and low, 
And I beneath a wizard's spell 

Answered with a quaint smile and slow. 

I had no skill to render clear 

The anguish that fulfilled my soul, 

But from that day, to my great fear, 
A bitter change upon her stole. 

Therefore I walk my life alone. 
We have not met for year and day, 

And night that should with lights be sown 
Surrounds me with unstarred dismay. 

INDRA, GOD OF THE SKY 

Indra, my Indra, hearken to me. 

The night fleets by from the gradual sea. 



Indra, my Indra, the sun leaps forth, 

The great sky flushes to south and to north. 

Now the deep blue glows stainless above, 
The clouds speed on, swift angels of love. 

Indra, O god of the round wide sky, 
Sitting enthroned and light-girdled on high, 

Master of worlds and centre of song, 

Bid the pure clouds bear my message along. 

Over her dwelling hover and bend. 
Into her heart your radiance send; 

And if you can, make her the more wise 
In the clear gentleness filHng your eyes; 

But if so far she has gone in that lore. 
Not even you can lead her forth more, 

Hitherward cause her to turn her pure gaze 
Mixed with your own unvarying blaze. 

And fill all our souls with that purity high 
To be kindred with her and the God of the Sky, 



146 



THREEFOLD 

Youth paints the new advancing years 

In tints of ruddy fire, 
And all the future fair appears 

With hope and strong desire. 

The middle mind makes Time's wings black, 
How slow his clipped advance! 

And dull the rain-swept darkhng track 
Where shone Joy's earher dance. 

But latter knowledge clears the skies, 

A day that has no night, 
The insight on whose calm arise 

The truths forever bright. 

All life lies open, glad, serene, 

The mysteries unfold 
Into the love whose ardour keen 

Clothes every hour in gold. 

MOLL PITCHER 

Battle of Monmouth, 1777 

Where the thickest smoke of the battle rolled, 

And the whistle of bullets rang sharp and clear, 
Beside his piece the old gunner stood 

147 



And sighted and shot devoid of fear. 
Such havoc his unintermittent play 

Had made in the ranks of the angered foe, 
They had charged and charged on his httle hill 

But still he had parried their every blow. 

With his blackened hands and his grimy face, 

And his eyes aflame vs^ith a purpose dread, 
His lips set firm in a changeless smile. 

Like the smile in the face of a strong man dead, 
He laboured all day at his terrible toil, 

He laboured all day v^ith a terrible joy, 
And v^atched his death-winged messengers fleet 

On their fatally swift and savage employ. 

Beside old Pitcher his sturdy wife 

Had stood and braved the brunt of the fight. 
And her passionate words had nerved his heart 

To a grimmer, more resistless might. 
Like his soul incarnate beside him she stood. 

And the words that welled from her fearless breast 
Seemed the very thoughts that rolled through his 
brain. 

And made up his being's truest and best. 

All day from the clear bubbhng spring hard by 
Her unwearied hands the cool water had brought. 

All day with her eloquent words of cheer 

Her unwearied soul on the soldiers had wrought, 
148 



Till the fire of her spirit had seized on them all, 
Till they fought as only strong men can fight, 

Aroused from the sleep of their daily Hfe, 

For the highest they know, for the just, for the 
right. 

In the afternoon, when the fight was hot. 

And the desperate foe gathered all his strength 
For a final attack that should end the fray, 

And give him his dear bought victory at length, 
The fate-sped bullet clove sharp through the air, 

And buried itself in brave Pitcher's brain. 
And dead at the feet of his wife standing near 

He fell without time to speak or complain. 

What time had she then for her private grief? 

What time had she then for sorrow and tears ? 
She crushed in her heart all womanish pain. 

She cast to the winds all womanish fears, 
And rushed to his side, and snatched from his hand 

The blackened swab, then silent and bold 
Set herself to her task till across the field 

The flaming thunder of the cannon rolled. 

Through the rest of the fight, till the twilight fell. 

She sighted and shot devoid of fear. 
Though the smoke of battle grew thick and dun. 
Though the bullets whirled round her sharp and 
clear. 

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There dead at her feet her husband lay, 
And dead in her heart lay the joy of years, 

And glazed in an anguish, frozen and fierce, 
Unshed in her eyes shone the bitter tears. 

O my country! a hundred years ago, 

The love of you in all hearts flamed. 
Till the enemy back from our cities and fields. 

Crept to his lair, defeated, ashamed. 
And we, their children, whose lofty deeds 

Like brave Moll Pitcher's built up our land. 
Are called in a fight more difficult far 

Beside our cannon unflinching to stand. 

O my country women! the anguished time 

Bids you sight your cannon and boldly fire, 
Till oppression and wrong that infest our land 

Are shrivelled in the blaze of your noble ire. 
Till licensed injustice is hurled into flight. 

Till unabashed plunder is hidden from view; 
O my country women, shrink not from the fight 

Wherein our country has need of you. 

FREEDOM AND THE WEST 

Across the fierce and rolling sea 

Came Freedom, strong and peerless; 

The storm shook earth and bent the tree. 
She stood serene and fearless; 
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She raised her banner to the sky, 
She called her sons around her, — 

Before her, broken, shivered, lie 

The chains that once had bound her. 

She heard through many bitter hours 

The voice of loud complaining. 
She felt the growth of nobler powers. 

She saw the gloom was waning. 
No child of hers but should awake 

Into a Nation's gladness; 
The whole world's goodness was at stake. 

The conquest of old sadness. 

She comes the victor from the fight, 

She stills the angry murmur; 
She holds aloft the blazing Hght, 

Her life grows firm and firmer. 
She bears within her all the past. 

She calls unto her table 
All men, and bids them make at last 

The reign of Peace most stable. 

ON A BOOK OF POEMS 
(To E. C. S.) 

Once again the olden 

Joyance blossoms fair; 
Once again the golden 

Accents thrill the air; 



Once again we listen 
To the mellow strain, 

Gaze where song-waves glisten 
On that music's main. 

Clear as erst the message, 

Voice as nobly true. 
Sweet the wondrous presage 

Of the dreams we knew, 
Dreams that with the magic 

Of that singing rise. 
Sweeping every tragic 

Cloud from off our skies. 

Realms that light has builded 

Song has ever known, 
Seas that joy has gilded 

Verse has ever shown, 
And the gentler Muses 

Here again have sent 
What no heart refuses 

Of hope's blandishment. 

THE WESTERN MUSE 

In the space that is not space. 
In the time that is not time, 

I saw an Idea fair. 

And free as an unused rhyme. 
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How shall I speak in words 
Which limit and which bind 

The form of the high Thought, 
How bring the Shape to mind ? 

Pure and noble she is, 

With forward looking eyes, 

Eager, and strong, and large. 
Clear as the stainless skies. 

Where shall she find a home ? 

She gazed on the stormy seas 
That beat on a rock-bound coast 

West of the Hebrides. 

She sped across the main 

And paused where the rivers fair 
Break in the golden light 

Under the mountain air. 

Gladdened she paused and looked 
Across the prairied expanse. 

And something softer passed 
Into her mighty glance. 

There she descended and dwelt, 
A presence, a power, a strength, 

And the hearts of all men knew 
Her touch upon them at length. 

153 



And some with souls more akin 
Saw her more deeply and well, 

Found their lives mix with hers 
Under her potent spell. 

These spake for her aloud, 
Uttered her messages new. 

Clothed her subtlest high dreams 
In Beauty bright as the dew. 

Heart of the growing West, 

Lady, noble, divine. 
Lay your spell on the land. 

Make all its spaces shine! 

Temple and picture bright. 
Poem and Music sweet. 

Come forth at her command, 
Worship at her dear feet; 

One of the Angels high, 

That rule all the sister lands, 

One more gracious might 
Binding in golden bands 

Nations and speeding times. 
Full of a love most rare, 

Knowing that each man is best, 
And all the world is fair. 
154 



FOR A CHILD 

Miss N. C G. 

My dear little friend, 

These gentle words I send 

With my best love unto you 

To whom I am ever true. 

May you read in the cards 

Good luck and light, 

And sleep without dreaming 

Through every night. 

I am one of those bards 

Who pierce through the seeming. 

And know that my words 

Are carrier birds 

From the realms of truth 

To your all expecting youth. 

So my wishes flow 

In a deepening stream of goldening glow. 

May you never fail to see 

Red ripe apples on every tree; 

Ride in the very strongest boat 

When you chance to be afloat; 

Hear no song that is not sweet, 

Never dance with tiring feet; 

Always have a friend beside you 

Whatsoever fates betide you; 

155 



Know what dreams and music tell, 
Richer far than fairy land, 
When you rise unto the spell 
Of their guidance mystic, grand; 
All the silver stars be kind 
To your winsome happy mind, 
And your dear eyes ever see 
Lands as fair as Arcadie! 

THE MOUNTAINEER 

O mountaineer, O mountaineer, 

What means your song so heavenly clear ? 

Surely your inmost heart must know 
The voice which lures us upward far, 

Rich tones which from the sunrise flow, 
And accents of the evening star. 

Nay, rest you here, nor longer stray 
Beyond the confines of the day. 

But something holds me to the search 
Past village bound and home-Uke cheer, 

Beyond the lessening oak and birch. 
And gliding rivers, smooth and dear. 

Yet there is danger where you tread 
And lonely is the mountain's head. 

156 



I cannot rest until I see 

Pure of the mists that wander here 
The gHtter of the waters free 

And waves that ever move and veer. 

What profit in the distant sight, 

Or strength which comes from that rare light ? 

A message from the outlands far 

Across those heaving waves shall gHde, 

Mystic, and from a nobler star, 

Close to your deepmost soul allied. 

Can you not hear beneath the boughs 
Whose silence every tone allows ? 

Ah, through your boughs there ever go 
Faint echoes of your toil and life, 

Dim, sad reminders of the woe 

Which comes from anger and from strife. 

Will you return from your strange quest 
Into the valley's peace and rest ^ 

I shall return when I have heard 

The song upon the mountain's brow, 

Sweeter than notes of any bird. 

Finer than aught that guides me now. 

157 



What of the voice you long to be, 
Can that do aught for you or me ? 

The message from the nobler star 

Shall fill my song with meaning sweet, 

Whose strength shall burst the bond and bar 
Which hold slow Good*s yet Hngering feet. 

Lo! how the snows are white ahead, 
And many a wanderer there Hes dead. 

If I shall fall, another soul. 

Stronger and larger far than mine, 

Shall hear the music's thunder-roll 
And see the gradual golden shine. 

It cannot be of sure avail 

And you like all the rest will fail. 

Some day the message and the song 
Shall fill the world and make it clear 

That nought than these can be more strong. 
And nought than these can be more dear. 

THE END 



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SEP 18 i«H 



